Almost 90,000 residents of nursing homes in Bavaria have full vaccination protection.
Nevertheless, the strict visiting regulations in the facilities have hardly been relaxed.
Politicians would have to change the Protection Ordinance for this - but so far it has hesitated.
Munich
- Ingeborg Glupp is an optimist.
But lately she's been pensive a lot.
Again and again a question goes through her head.
Am I getting old enough to experience normalcy again?
Sometimes it feels like it's going to stay that way forever that her daughter has to wear an FFP2 mask when the two of them see each other.
That there can only be one meeting for two.
That your daughter has to submit a negative test every time.
Glupp is 88 years old and lives in a retirement home in Haar (Munich district).
She received her first vaccination on January 1st and the second three weeks later.
Most of the other residents are now also fully vaccinated.
That didn't change anything.
Each resident may be visited by a maximum of one relative per day.
Test and mask requirements apply.
This is how it regulates Paragraph 9 of the Infection Protection Ordinance.
These rules applied in the run-up to Christmas, when incidences were well over 200 in many regions.
And they continue to apply - although the number of cases has fallen sharply and in Bavaria's nursing homes more than 115,000 residents have now received the first and almost 90,000 residents the second vaccination.
Even so, they remain isolated.
The normalcy they hoped for with the vaccination has not returned.
For 80 percent of the vaccinated residents, the visiting restrictions have not been relaxed, for ten percent they have even tightened, reports the BIVA-Pflegeschutzbund.
This shows how clumsy the authorities are, emphasizes spokesman David Kröll.
But also how great the uncertainty is.
“No federal state wants to venture out.” And that, although the ethics council had already advocated relaxation in the homes four weeks ago.
"Many seniors still suffer a lot from this isolation," he says.
This is legally questionable, he explains.
Because the reason for the strict visit restrictions no longer applies with the vaccination protection.
So far, the Ministry of Health has only referred to the federal-state consultations on this issue.
However, yesterday evening the health ministers of the federal states agreed to relax the homes.
"The residents have had to cut back a lot," said Bavaria's Minister of Health Klaus Holetschek (CSU).
"Nobody is allowed to get lonely in the facilities." If most of the residents in a facility have full vaccination protection, more visits, group offers and community events should be possible again in the future.
For the few who have not been vaccinated, protection is guaranteed by the rules of hygiene.
The news comes as a surprise even for the porters.
You wanted to increase the pressure on politics today with a joint appeal.
Because up to now they had hardly any leeway, they had to adhere to the applicable protection ordinance.
Despite all concerns about the mutations and because not all nurses have had a chance to get the vaccination, organizations such as Caritas are also pleading for more visits to be allowed again.
For example, from a household instead of just one person, says Caritas spokesman Tobias Utters.
For many seniors that would mean that they could see their grandchildren again.
In the AWO homes, too, little had changed so far as a result of the vaccinations, reports nursing officer Dagmar Grabner.
“The pressure is growing, we can feel it,” she says.
"We know that the situation is unbearable for many families."
“It would be bad for us if we didn't relax further,” says Ingeborg Glupp.
She is grateful that she can see her daughter.
“But I have a 99-year-old friend in the home,” she says.
Her family lives in Austria, she has many grandchildren and great-grandchildren - and will have to wait a long time before she can see them again, Ingeborg Glupp fears.
She says: "Many of us are afraid that we won't be given enough time to experience that."
