The compulsory vaccination for employees in clinics and care facilities, which was decided by the federal government a year ago, expires at the end of December because the currently predominant corona variants can trigger an infection despite vaccination or recovery.

Health department head and mayor Oliver Franz (CDU) has presented a municipal balance sheet on the success of compulsory vaccination.

According to this, the employees of the health department had to check and check more than 800 cases.

Oliver Bock

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Rheingau-Taunus district and for Wiesbaden.

  • Follow I follow

The obligation to vaccinate was anchored in the Infection Protection Act in December 2021 to strengthen vaccination prevention.

As a result, hospitals and inpatient and semi-inpatient care facilities were obliged to report missing or dubious evidence from their employees that they had been vaccinated against the corona virus to the health department.

The health authorities had previously been tasked with checking proof of immunity and enforcing compulsory corona vaccination.

In Wiesbaden, 806 suspicious activity reports came from 273 public and private institutions and healthcare companies, which had to be checked for compliance with the legal requirements.

The health department speaks of “often complex individual case decisions” that were made with “great conscientiousness”.

Hardly any additional vaccinations due to compulsory vaccination

Before the statutory sanctions were imposed, there was direct contact with the reported persons and the offer of a personal vaccination consultation.

After the individual assessment of each individual case, the ordering of milder consequences such as the obligation to wear a mask and carry out daily tests was sufficient in many cases.

In eight cases, however, an activity ban had to be imposed “as a last resort”.

In each individual case, it was carefully considered whether the operation of the respective facility could be maintained.

Ensuring basic care for patients or residents was taken into account by the health department and evaluated with the employer.

However, the number of people who would still have decided to be immunized because of the obligation to vaccinate is “unfortunately low”, admits Franz.

Nevertheless, he draws a positive conclusion about the "mammoth bureaucratic task" of compulsory vaccination and the control by the health authorities.

The fact that the Federal Ministry of Health is reassessing the situation and refraining from extending the compulsory corona vaccination "makes us as a city administration satisfied".

The team previously responsible for enforcing compulsory vaccination is now dedicating itself to the Measles Protection Act, which has been in force since March 2020.

Its implementation requires “a comparable approach and a similar amount of effort”.

The law applies to all people who are cared for in a community facility or work there, as well as to employees in refugee accommodation, medical practices and hospitals.

So far, almost 3,000 cases have been reported to the health department, although not all facilities have reacted.