In some nursing homes, hardly any residents have been boosted so far

Created: 03/03/2022Updated: 03/03/2022 06:20

An employee (r) of the retirement home in Vorbachtal looks after a resident of the private nursing home.

© Marijan Murat/dpa/archive image

Time and again, people had to die in nursing homes during corona outbreaks.

Nevertheless, there are still homes in the south-west where hardly any resident has received a booster vaccination.

Stuttgart – Even after several deadly corona outbreaks in nursing homes, the booster rate in some facilities in the state is alarmingly low.

For example, recently there were homes in Baden-Württemberg where not even every tenth resident received a booster vaccination, according to a response from the Ministry of Health to a request from the SPD, which is available to the German Press Agency.

The nationwide booster rate was most recently (as of January 25) on average 77.5 percent for residents and 51.4 percent for employees.

The Social Democrats asked Health Minister Manne Lucha (Greens) about the status of vaccinations in the homes in the individual urban and rural districts - and received an answer for 33 urban and rural districts in mid-February.

Result: In most districts, the booster quota of the residents was still below 80 percent at the time of the survey.

In the district of Ravensburg, the constituency of Lucha, it was particularly low at 68 percent, in the district of Constance it was only 67 percent.

In some homes, the situation looks even grimmer, the ministry's response revealed.

Because for each urban and rural district, the five nursing homes with the lowest rates for the booster vaccination were also surveyed.

In Ravensburg there is a home where only 11 percent of the residents received a booster.

In the Karlsruhe district, the worst home is only 7.7 percent, in the Ortenau district and in the Esslingen district, according to the ministry, there are even homes in which not a single resident has been boosted.

In Stuttgart, the negative list is headed by a home in which only 12.5 percent of the residents have received a booster.

"The fact that on average every fourth person living in nursing homes is not boosted is not a success, but negligent," said SPD parliamentary group leader Andreas Stoch.

Nursing homes are about the survival of vulnerable groups.

“In view of the protective measures that are now available, there must be no more corona deaths in the homes.

It is irresponsible when people have to die because the country has not done everything to protect them.”

On average, the booster rate among employees is significantly lower than among residents of the homes - despite the upcoming vaccination requirement for this occupational group.

According to the latest data, only every second care worker in Baden-Württemberg (51.4 percent) received their booster vaccination.

The booster rate among the nursing staff in the homes in the Reutlingen district is particularly low at 39 percent, in the Heilbronn homes it is 41.4 percent.

The so-called facility-related compulsory vaccination will soon take effect in the industry.

Unvaccinated employees from clinics and nursing homes, for example, must be immunized before they come into force on March 16 in order to be able to continue working.

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SPD health expert Florian Wahl asked Lucha to advertise more for the vaccination in the nursing homes.

"The pure vaccination offer from the outside is not enough to persuade the residents who still have doubts, their relatives and legal advisers as well as the employees who have not yet been vaccinated to vaccinate." This is especially true if the home management is not convinced of the vaccination either.

It is also not clear what the state government wants to do about the low vaccination rate among nursing staff.

“If Minister Lucha only speaks to the association management, with whom there is already a consensus on vaccination, that doesn’t help much.” Vaccination must be promoted directly to the nursing staff.

Lucha's ministry rejects the criticism.

The country has provided sufficient vaccination offers and has constantly promoted vaccination.

"The country cannot do more, either practically or legally," emphasized a spokesman.

The reasons for the poor rates among the residents are manifold - in addition to vaccination skepticism, acute hospital stays or vaccination breakthroughs could stand in the way of a vaccination.

Especially for newly admitted residents, the basic immunization still has to be completed, which is why a booster vaccination is not yet an option.

It is also reported that residents or their carers refused further vaccinations after the basic immunization.

In a nursing home in Rastatt, 15 people died from or with Corona at the turn of the year.

The Baden-Baden public prosecutor's office is investigating, among other things, negligent homicide.

The district office is of the opinion that the corona virus was able to spread in the nursing home because hygiene rules and hygiene standards were not observed.

The operator defends himself against "general public accusations" by the authorities - and pointed out that despite the vaccination campaign, very few of the residents who died were vaccinated twice and nobody was boosted.

Even if the peak of the omicron wave has passed, unfortunately it cannot be ruled out for the future "that there will be deaths in institutions again," said the spokesman for the ministry.

In the end, only a high vaccination rate would help.

That is why the facility-related compulsory vaccination is currently being implemented with great commitment.

dpa