BERLIN, Jan 25 — As Germany gears up to make Covid-19 vaccination compulsory in the healthcare sector, the industry fears that resistance among some workers will exacerbate staffing shortages and leave many families reliant on carers in the lurch.
Institutions and families that are heavily reliant on workers from eastern Europe where vaccination rates are lower have particular reason to be worried, said Daniel Schloer, the owner of the SunaCare GmbH agency that matches German families with Polish carers looking for work abroad.“Among the carers we currently work with, the rate is around 40 per cent. This means 60 per cent of households will have a problem getting the care they need,” Schloer said.
The coronavirus pandemic has made the crunch even worse as many healthcare workers cannot cope with the bigger workload, a problem also faced by other European countries including France and the United Kingdom which have also made vaccination mandatory nL1N2S30YB for the sector. “You do the same thing, just under a different job title. Everyone who has some brains and understands this will do the same thing as me,” the carer said.