Darmstadt: Heim may not prohibit seniors from leaving the room

• ofClaudia Kabel

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The Darmstadt Administrative Court has declared quarantine measures in a retirement home to be inadmissible. Now the health department wants to improve future orders.

The Darmstadt health department is not allowed to order a retirement home to prohibit residents from leaving their rooms in the event of quarantine. That was recently decided by the Darmstadt Administrative Court. A resident had turned to the chamber with an urgent application because he saw his rights to freedom restricted – and was right.

The health department now wants to draw conclusions from this. “We accept the decision, but we consider the issuing of such an order to a nursing home in which there is an outbreak with Covid-19, but it is still appropriate and absolutely necessary,” said office manager Jürgen Krahn at the request of the Frankfurter Rundschau on Tuesday .

Due to confirmed corona cases in the home, the health department had ordered various quarantine measures, including the segregation of all non-infected people and the order not to allow these people to leave their rooms “until at least November 26, 2020”.

The court ruled that this information was formulated too indefinitely. In addition, it is legally inadmissible to give up the senior citizens’ residence, to prohibit people from leaving their rooms. The decision was not about whether people should be segregated in their rooms, but about the fact that a transfer of such sovereign powers to third parties is not provided for in the Infection Protection Act, especially since this is a significant encroachment on freedoms, said a spokesman of the administrative court.

Office manager Krahn concludes from this that the office “needs even better legal advice and support in drafting such orders”. In inpatient care facilities in particular, segregation and hygiene measures are of crucial importance in order to avoid further infections.

A question about this in three senior residences in Darmstadt was answered differently. “No comment” was the message from the Kranichstein residential park. The senior citizens’ residence Mathildenhöhe could not be reached by phone. Only the senior citizens’ residence Emilia, which belongs to the Darmstadt Clinic, wanted to comment. There have also been several Covid 19 cases here. Then tests are usually carried out on a floor-by-floor basis, and until the results are available, the senior citizens are required to stay in their rooms, as the health department says, says the head of the facility, Patricia Roßbach-Jauernik.

If someone is infected and is in room quarantine by order of the office, the effort is very great because the staff must wear special protective clothing to take care of them. With clever planning, for example by assigning certain forces only to infected or suspected cases or by caring for those affected at the end, you try to help yourself. However, if someone wanted some fresh air, they could definitely go outside. “We are not an enforcement authority here,” says Roßbach-Jauernik. In principle, everyone is always allowed out, the residents are free citizens who cannot be locked up.

Did the people suffer from the current situation? Roßbach-Jauernik rejects the widespread cliché of the poor old people who would get lonely in the homes: the majority of those affected are doing well, visits are allowed. On the other hand, elderly people who live all alone in their apartment are probably more lonely at the moment. “We are in constant contact with the residents, we do handicrafts, bake and chat, of course in compliance with the hygiene rules,” she says.

According to their information, all 193 residents and all 150 employees are currently being tested once a week. However, it is impossible to test the approximately 260 weekly visitors. To do this, around five people would have to be withdrawn from care: “That is beyond our strength.”

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