Visibly pleased and with multiple expressions of thanks, the elderly gentleman says goodbye. A young employee at a pharmacy in Sachsenhausen has just given him his two sheets of paper with the QR codes for the digital vaccination pass and has explained exactly how he can load them onto his smartphone. The young girl who wants to register her vaccinations with the employee next door on Thursday is asked to be patient. The employee photocopies the vaccination card and ID of the 17-year-old and tells her that she can probably pick up the digital vaccination card on the following Monday or Tuesday. Everyone who queues here with the same goal, then kindly thanks for the service of the pharmacy. A woman who only wanted the certificate bought another fine hand cream:"After all, the pharmacy should also earn something."

Patricia Andreae

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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    The service of the pharmacy is remunerated by the federal government.

    She receives 18 euros for registering the first vaccination, and a further six euros for the second.

    When asked whether the digital vaccination certificate fills his coffers and he would like to erect a memorial to the Federal Minister of Health, Holger Seyfarth only responds with scornful laughter.

    Jens Spahn would certainly not build a monument to the Hessian pharmacists, you can clearly hear that from Seyfarth's words.

    What health policy burdens them can only be borne with irony, says the chairman of the Hessian Pharmacists' Association, which operates three pharmacies in Frankfurt, the FAZ

    The rush came on Monday

    “The minister decides, and we should manage it overnight,” says Seyfahrt, summing up the frustration. So it was with the issue of the masks, with the procurement of the vaccine, with the testing and now with the vaccination passports. The instructions were received by the association last Friday at 6:20 p.m. And on Monday came the rush.

    Whether he gets a total of 24 euros for issuing the digital vaccination pass or soon only twelve, as is being discussed, is almost secondary. The whole thing is not cost-covering anyway. After all, you have to take into account the time employees spend talking at the counter when entering the data and, above all, with the many telephone inquiries. Because the doctors resisted and said that they couldn't issue the digital vaccination passports because they had to vaccinate, they simply put it on the pharmacists, says Seyfarth.

    Conversely, the pharmacists would like to take some of the vaccinations from the doctors. "If we had been included, we would have been through long ago," says the head of the association. In other countries it has long been customary to vaccinate in pharmacies. At least for flu vaccinations, there are already model projects in Germany, according to the pharmacists' association, for example, there were those in four districts for those insured with AOK in the 2021/21 vaccination season. These included North Rhine, Bavaria, Saarland and Lower Saxony. In Westphalia-Lippe, Baden-Württemberg, Berlin and Hesse, model projects are planned for the upcoming vaccination season 2021/22.

    According to Seyfarth, vaccination in the pharmacy is extremely well received, after all, pharmacies are easily accessible for almost everyone and are also open much longer than doctors' practices, even on Saturdays.

    In addition, the pharmacists are also trained for this.

    The prerequisite for getting started with corona vaccinations is of course that there is enough vaccine.

    The institutions of trust

    To make the point of view of his branch clearer, Seyfarth says rather jokingly: "We could stop issuing vaccination certificates on July 1st and see what happens." It is clear that this will not happen: "We will not send anyone away!" Finally pharmacies are institutions of trust in their environment that can be relied on.

    But actually others could also issue the digital vaccination passports, says Seyfarth, for example the health insurance companies, which also have branches everywhere. "Or preferably the mail-order pharmacies," says Seyfahrt with audible smugness.