Outrageous conditions in corona test sites?
Employees unpack - operator suspects intrigue
Created: 04/15/2022, 04:51
By: Thomas Zimmerly
Lasche tests: A lot went wrong at the stations operated by MBC Gastronomie GmbH, such as here in Dachau-Ost.
© hab
Hair-raising conditions are said to have prevailed in corona test stations operated by a company from Erding in various districts, including Dachau.
Dachau/Erding – In May 2021, an advertisement will appear in the Erdinger Anzeiger in which bar operator Mario Criepok praises himself as a helper in the Corona emergency.
He converted his Club Bel Air into a test station.
Instead of drinks, there are now cuts there.
"We also have the necessary know-how," Criepok is quoted as saying.
He himself had “trained himself with medical courses on the use of corona antigen tests”.
Hair-raising conditions in corona test sites: "Results automatically negative"
The business with the tests is obviously going extremely well.
Criepok, now 33, will soon be running test stations in the districts of Erding, Freising and Ebersberg as managing director of MBC Gastronomie GmbH.
He also works in the Dachauer Land in Schwabhausen, Indersdorf and Dachau.
In his test places, mostly containers, something is supposed to go wrong.
Some of his 78 employees even report unsustainable conditions.
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“You could book appointments up to 4 p.m. with us.
We did the tests of the last customers and entered their data into the program.
Then I left without checking the test.
The test persons later received a result by e-mail.
The results were automatically negative,” reports an MBC employee.
When asked why she didn't stay longer, she says: "I acted on specific instructions.
We employees were told to close on time.
Overtime would not be paid.”
Corona test center employees unpack - operator suspects intrigue
The thing with the automatic results is confirmed by several company employees.
One employee goes even further and says that "people got test results who weren't even there with us".
Another employee says that she often stayed until the result was available - but not always.
As far as the automatic results are concerned, the Dachau district office cannot make any statements, "because the software used for evaluating the tests is the responsibility of the operator," says press spokeswoman Sina Török.
In any case, there have been no complaints about Criepok so far, according to Török.
"It's the first time I've heard that testing was so lax," says Mario Criepok when asked.
"I can't imagine working with such gross negligence." The MBC boss is considering going to the police.
Criepok suspects an intrigue against his person and speaks of a "clear dissatisfaction on the part of individual employees who want to damage my reputation".
Untrained staff in test centers?
“Get a certificate out of nowhere”
But the dissatisfied employees go even further.
Again, several state that they should always have tested alone in the container.
On their first day at work, "someone gave them a short briefing, that's it," said one voice.
Further training for testing: none.
One employee even claims that she "got a certificate out of nowhere" even though she never took part in any training.
Criepok, on the other hand, states that a briefing would have been enough, training was not necessary.
Regarding the accusation that only one employee is available in the container at a time, he says that he doesn't need three people for jobs "that only do 20 tests a day".
There were also deficiencies in hygiene during the test processes in the stations.
As the MBC employees surveyed reported in unison, there were no gloves, gowns or disinfectants.
In many cases, the employees would have bought the items on their own account.
The boss then only reluctantly reimbursed the amounts – in one case not at all.
Criepok vehemently denies these allegations.
There was always enough material available, he paid the bills.
Employees of a corona test center operator complain: salary received late or not at all
Many MBC employees who have employment contracts on a 450-euro basis or on a part-time basis complain that sometimes they have not received their wages for a month, sometimes they have received it late or sometimes not in full.
Criepok admits that "in principle".
But that only applies to cases in which the employees “did not fill out their timesheets properly”.
Otherwise, he denies not having paid salaries properly.
Corona test sites: district office revokes company permission - for the second time
Over the past few weeks, Criepok has closed almost all of its stations.
Most recently, only the branches in his Erdinger Club Bel Air and in the city of Dachau were open, he says.
He has already fired many of his employees.
The Erding district office had obviously known about inconsistencies for a long time and had already withdrawn the “commission” from Criepok in June 2021, according to press spokeswoman Claudia Fiebrandt-Kirmeyer.
With the decision that Criepok has now received, the authorities explicitly closed the test station in Bel Air. There will be drinks instead of tests in the future.
The MediCan case is occupying the district court
MBC Gastronomie GmbH is not an isolated case.
In June 2021, the Dachauer Nachrichten reported on the company MediCan from the Ruhr area, which also operated as a private station operator in the Dachau district.
In the meantime it has become known that MediCan is said to have made 900,000 unauthorized invoices for corona tests, according to Katja Nagel, press spokeswoman at the Bochum district court.
The trial against the heads of MediCan has been going on before the regional court there since the end of 2021.
Since then, father and son have been in the dock for a particularly serious case of fraud (father) and aiding and abetting (son).
The amount of damage is 25 million euros.
"We are still in the middle of taking evidence," said Nagel.
Further dates are scheduled for July.
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You can find more current news from the district of Dachau at Merkur.de/Dachau.
