After outrage among paediatricians about new test obligations, the NRW Ministry of Health made it clear: accompanying parents do not need a test.
On a second point, the state ministers are calling on the federal government to correct the law.
Düsseldorf - Parents who accompany their offspring in pediatric and adolescent practices do not need a corona test certificate. The North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Health (MAGS) made this clear on Thursday after considerable confusion and protests from paediatricians. Accompanying persons of patients do not need to be tested for the coronavirus before entering a practice or when visiting a doctor, said a spokeswoman for the MAGS of the German press agency.
At the same time, following an application from North Rhine-Westphalia, all 16 state health ministers asked the federal legislature to clarify and correct the testing of practice staff. This emerges from a unanimous decision of the Conference of Health Ministers (GMK) on Thursday. The background to the vortex is the Federal Infection Protection Act submitted by the SPD, Greens and FDP, which was passed last week.
Accordingly, “employers, employees and visitors” are only allowed to enter medical practices if they have been tested and can prove it. "In isolated cases, a general test obligation for people accompanying patients, for example in pediatric practices, has already been derived from this," said the MAGS in Düsseldorf. But: Accompanying persons such as parents, legal guardians or caregivers are treated people - i.e. patients - to be equated, explained the spokeswoman. And patients do not have to be tested in order to gain access to the practices - this was previously generally accepted as undisputed.
The MAGS reacted by clarifying the outrage and uncertainty of paediatricians who had criticized compulsory testing for accompanying parents as completely impractical. The "Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung" had previously reported on the new explanations from the MAGS.
In the second point, the mandatory personal test, the paediatricians received clear support from the federal states.
The professional association of paediatricians (BVKJ) in North Rhine-Westphalia protested on Wednesday against a new obligation, according to which vaccinated staff must also be tested daily.
This new regulation in the amended Infection Protection Act is medically nonsensical, cannot be implemented in everyday life, and rapid tests are hardly available anymore, emphasized, among others, the BVKJ chairwoman of North Rhine-Westphalia, Christiane Thiele.
Many practices are threatened with closure.
The BVKJ in North Rhine-Westphalia had requested a quick “legally secure, practical and cost-neutral correction”.
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The GMK resolution now calls on the federal legislature to withdraw the "inappropriate" daily test obligation for recovered and vaccinated practice staff.
"Daily testing of fully immunized employees leads to unreasonable stress in areas already stressed by the pandemic," says the decision.
Test capacities are also only available to a limited extent.
The legislature should immediately clarify and correct that two antigen rapid tests in their own use are sufficient for vaccinated or recovered practice staff.
Thiele told the dpa on Thursday that the practices were now relieved.
The law has to be changed in order to really solve the problem nationwide.
"Half-baked laws, for which obviously no expert knowledge was consulted, may no longer be enacted like this." Dpa
