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Since the general practitioners have been vaccinating against Covid-19 across the board, the vaccination campaign in Germany has accelerated significantly.
The Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KV), which organize immunization in the federal states, are now calling for a change of course in many places: The vaccination centers should close step by step - and thus the general practitioners should be given significantly more vaccine doses.
The vaccination centers are currently each receiving 2.25 million doses per week from the federal government.
In the doctor's offices, however, only the amount that is supplied by the manufacturers is inoculated.
That’s about a million cans next week.
The KV in Baden-Württemberg started a nationwide online petition last week, according to which the Covid vaccinations should be shifted immediately from the vaccination centers to the doctor's offices.
With the exception of "few necessary" facilities, the central vaccination centers should be closed, so the demand.
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The aim is to significantly increase the speed of vaccination.
A spokeswoman said it was also much easier to make appointments in a decentralized manner via the doctor’s offices.
Patients with previous illnesses would have to organize a medical certificate in advance before they can come to the vaccination center.
That would not be the case with vaccination in practice.
However, the Ministry of Health in Baden-Württemberg rejects the imminent closure of vaccination centers.
"It should not be about playing family doctor practices and vaccination centers against each other - we need both offers to get the vaccine quickly to those willing to vaccinate," said a spokeswoman.
If significantly more vaccine actually comes through the EU in May and June, all the capacities of the vaccination centers and private practices will be needed.
Will GPs soon make vaccination centers superfluous?
Source: picture alliance / dpa-Zentralbild / Bodo Schackow;
picture alliance / dpa / Nicolas Armer
However: "In the medium term, the vaccinations should actually be carried out completely in the private practices, because that is where they belong."
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KV made headlines in Berlin when it became known at the end of March that it had terminated the contract with the Senate on the vaccination centers by April 30th.
KV provides the majority of the doctors working in the vaccination centers.
With the continued adherence to the facilities, the nationwide vaccination in medical practices will be "delayed further," it said.
Without termination, the contract would have been extended by three months.
After the letter, there was a lot of trouble in the capital.
According to media reports, the Governing Mayor Michael Müller (SPD) even intervened personally.
A solution is not yet in sight.
According to the KV Berlin, the Senate Department for Health has been sent an adapted draft contract - and no response has yet been received.
"It makes sense to initially only supply doctors' surgeries with vaccines"
The KVen are also responsible for a research institute - the Central Institute for Statutory Health Insurance (Zi) - which expresses further criticism of the vaccination centers.
In the short time in which they vaccinated against Corona, the medical practices consumed more than 95 percent of the vaccine delivered, argues CEO Dominik von Stillfried.
In the vaccination centers it is only 70 percent - although stocks for the second vaccination are also kept here.
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More than 3.5 million unvaccinated doses have already accumulated in the centers.
"That slows the vaccination progress," criticizes Stillfried.
"In order to be able to vaccinate more people quickly, it would make sense to initially only supply the doctor's surgeries with vaccines and the vaccination centers only when the stocks of unvaccinated doses have been used up."
Around 55,000 medical practices in Germany could currently vaccinate against corona and jointly administer around one million doses a day.
"If the vaccination centers still do not vaccinate all of the 2.25 million doses allotted to them, they should be dissolved in practice in favor of vaccination."
With his argumentation he meets with contradiction in many federal states.
The Senate for Health in Bremen announced, for example, that the vaccination centers were not inferior to the general practitioners “in terms of scope and speed”.
"We will therefore not send more vaccine to general practitioners," says a spokesman.
Also in Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, Thuringia, Schleswig-Holstein, Saxony and the State of Berlin, on request, people stick to immunizing the population both in vaccination centers and in medical practices.
"In Berlin there are currently no plans to close vaccination centers and leave vaccination entirely to doctors or other institutions," said a spokeswoman for the health administration.
The federal states therefore want to stick to their vaccination centers that have been set up under high pressure.
After all, most of the prime ministers can barely adorn themselves with pictures of vaccination centers running at full capacity.
The capacity is still not fully utilized in many places.
In addition, the federal government has promised the financing by the end of September.
New vaccination record thanks to family doctors
The first week of the family doctors vaccinating is over and the success is great.
However, only a few doses of the vaccines are currently available to practices.
But the prospects are bright, because soon a wave of vaccines is rolling towards Germany.
Source: WORLD / Matthias Heinrich
The bottleneck in general practitioners' practices was originally supposed to ease at the end of April.
The Federal Ministry of Health had announced 3.17 million vaccine doses to the doctors for the 17th calendar week, i.e. from April 26th - three times as many as currently.
According to the current delivery schedule, there are now only 1.5 million vaccine doses from Biontech and AstraZeneca for the week in question.
According to the ministry, this has to do with the fact that the delivery procedure was re-coordinated with wholesalers, practices and pharmacies, as the manufacturers delivered on different days.
This delayed the supply by a week.
The originally announced amount should therefore not arrive in the practices until May 3rd.
According to the ministry, all forecasts are fraught with uncertainty.
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And then the AstraZeneca question
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Last week there was another point of contention between general practitioners and vaccination centers: the question of who gets doses from which manufacturer.
While the general practitioners initially only received the vaccine from Biontech / Pfizer, half of them will be supplied with doses from AstraZeneca from next week.
In the Saarland, only the vaccine from the British-Swedish manufacturer is to be supplied to general practitioners.
This is now causing displeasure in many places.
"We general practitioners are massively restricted in our work," says the Berlin doctor Irmgard Landgraf.
She has many young and seriously ill patients who urgently need a vaccination but could not be vaccinated with AstraZeneca.
They must now refer them to a vaccination center or postpone their appointments until later.
Even some patients over 60 years of age, who, according to the recommendation of the Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko), do not have an increased risk, would be skeptical about vaccination with AstraZeneca.
“Because of the negative reporting, I have the feeling that I am offering my patients sour beer.
I'm afraid that the cans might stay where they are, ”says Landgraf.
AstraZeneca is a proven and good vaccine with a very high protective effect against serious disease processes.
The ENT doctor Christian Lübbers from Weilheim in Upper Bavaria is less concerned.
“There are still enough patients who would be vaccinated with AstraZeneca.” Lübbers rates the individual advice options in the practices as an advantage over the vaccination centers.
There, patients who are still unsure could be helped much better with the weighing up.