Status: 02/27/2022 05:58 a.m
From mid-March, vaccination against the corona virus in nursing and medicine will apply. They already exist for nursing homes in several federal states. Introduced by institutions themselves – with success.
By Markus Pfalzgraf, SWR
At first he wanted to wait for the legislature, but then he just started himself: Kaspar Pfister is the owner of a private nursing home group in Baden-Württemberg. What is becoming the norm in March has been with him since the end of the year: The BeneVit Group from Mössingen in Swabia introduced compulsory vaccination against the corona virus for its own employees in November and enforced it in December.
The shareholder and managing director would do it again, with the knowledge of today he would have acted even earlier. “I will therefore not deviate from the right path. Our residents and my employees are now protected as well as possible,” says Kaspar Pfister. “Although those who have been vaccinated can become infected, the course remains largely symptom-free. In some houses we are already running campaigns for the fourth vaccination.”
Fewer and fewer exemptions for the unvaccinated
The group operates nursing homes and similar facilities in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse, Lower Saxony and Saarland at a total of more than 30 locations. According to current information from the company, 98 percent of the around 1,700 employees currently affected are basic immunized or have recovered. More than two-thirds of the workers had a booster shot.
In November, owner Pfister decided for his facilities that unvaccinated employees would be released from December. This applies to all employees – regardless of whether they work directly in nursing or in administration. Because all employees have contact with people in need of care, as a spokeswoman for the BeneVit group explains. According to your information, 32 people are currently exempt because they are not or not sufficiently vaccinated or have not given any information. Among them are nine nurses. Gradually, the number of exemptions decreases. Those on leave would continue to be paid.
Caregivers are returning
In the home “Haus Reichberg” in the Swabian Alb, all four unvaccinated nurses are now back – almost remorseful. “The last employee who came back freshly vaccinated is annoyed that she didn’t get vaccinated earlier,” said home manager Corinna Sauter SWR: “We are now glad that she is back.” Sauter believes that nursing staff should not see themselves as victims due to compulsory vaccination – on the contrary: “We are systemically important, more than ever. And we should prove that now.”
The “Care Alliance in the Karlsruhe Technology Region” sees it differently. Staff shortages are feared there. Caregivers also felt stigmatized if they were the only ones who had to be vaccinated, but not the rest of the population. This criticism is heard more often: Especially as long as there is no general obligation to vaccinate, employees in care do not feel sufficiently appreciated for their work, especially during the pandemic.
“Important building block in prevention”
The BeneVit owner, on the other hand, sees the fact that compulsory vaccination is now being discussed again as a “slap in the face” for “everyone who has campaigned for vaccination”. Pfister says: “Compulsory vaccination is an important component in prevention, and many have accepted it and simply done so because we are aware of the responsibility for people in need of care, but also for colleagues.” Anyone who refuses now will bring the state to its knees, “and the 98 percent who have been vaccinated, as with BeneVit, will be ignored”.
The last impetus came from cases in our own facilities: there had been corona outbreaks there. In a BeneVit nursing home in Mannheim, 13 people died in December who were being cared for there. According to management, employees became infected in their private lives and unknowingly carried the virus into the facility. The public prosecutor’s office began an investigation. A total of 45 people died in the facilities, including one employee.
The operator has had good experiences with the strict, own vaccination obligation. Nevertheless, in retrospect, owner Pfister wonders whether he could not have saved even more lives through earlier, consistent vaccination.