A dispute is threatening between the Berlin Senate, the Red Cross and Lichtenberg’s district office. Specifically, it is about whether the Senate was allowed to close the drive-in vaccination center on Landsberger Allee in May 2022 at the suggestion of the Lichtenberg disaster officer. Or whether the DRK is right with its complaint.
This emerges from a response from State Secretary for Health Thomas Götz (Greens) to a still unpublished request from FDP social expert Tobias Bauschke, which is available in the Tagesspiegel.
The DRK had been commissioned by the Senate to organize the public vaccination centers, i.e. to oblige suitable operators. The drive-in vaccination center on Landsberger Allee was operated by the Malteser Service under the leadership of the DRK.
The disaster officer from Lichtenberg visited the site in May. He apparently complained that the floors and furniture did not meet the standards of medical facilities. He had the vaccination center closed. “We have thoroughly examined the allegations,” said a DRK spokesman on request. “There was no reason to close the vaccination center.”
The Senate has been dealing with the allegations in recent weeks, and its State Secretary Götz writes that “it cannot be ruled out with sufficient certainty that organizational and/or hygienic deficiencies may have occurred during the operating period of the drive-in vaccination center in Lichtenberg”.
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However: “Details are the subject of ongoing proceedings, the outcome of which remains to be seen.” Götz’s answer shows that the DRK had already rejected the allegations in May with a letter from a lawyer to the district office and Senate Health Administration.
The drive-in vaccination center would have been closed a week after the controversial control in May anyway. As in other vaccination centers, demand had dropped. The center in the exhibition center and the vaccination points in the Spandauer Arcaden, in the Lindencenter in Lichtenberg, in the Ikea Tempelhof and in the Freizeitforum Marzahn had already been closed in February. In June, the vaccination centers in the ICC and in the former Tegel Airport closed.
Currently, only the vaccination center in the Ring Center in Friedrichshain is still in operation in Berlin. Interested people can get vaccinated in doctor’s offices and some pharmacies.
