In Thuringia, too, public sector employees contracted the corona virus during their work. However, only a few have been successful in having this recognized as an occupational disease or accident at work.
Erfurt (dpa/th) – During the corona pandemic, hundreds of employees and civil servants in state authorities in Thuringia tried to have a Covid 19 disease recognized as an occupational disease or accident at work. Only a few were successful, according to figures from the Ministry of Finance and the Thuringia accident insurance fund, which are available to the German Press Agency.
So far, 57 of the 70 applications submitted by officials have been rejected. Only two were recognized as occupational diseases and thus as accidents at work. In this year alone, the Unfallkasse had 99 approvals compared to 842 rejections, in 2021 there were 27 approvals with 1258 rejections.
In the Thuringia accident insurance fund, state and local employees are legally insured against accidents. The cases of Covid-19 classified here as an occupational disease mainly affected the staff of kindergartens, public health services and laboratory workers who contracted the corona virus when handling infectious material. So far this year, the accident insurance fund has received almost 1000 suspected reports of Covid-19 as an occupational disease, in 2021 there were 1285.
According to the Ministry of Finance, it was mostly teachers (44) and police officers (30) who applied to the state officials for the recognition of Covid-19 as an accident at work. Including other areas of the state administration, a total of 78 applications were received. According to the ministry, the two recognitions related to the police medical service. 26 officials had lodged an objection to the non-recognition, some of the objections had been withdrawn, and some of the officials had failed.
The prerequisite for the classification of an infectious disease as an occupational disease or work-related accident is that the infection can be proven to have happened during the exercise or as a result of the service. If the disease is recognized as an occupational disease, the statutory accident insurance or the occupational accident welfare office will cover the treatment and rehabilitation costs. Pension benefits are possible in the event of reduced earning capacity, and survivor’s pensions in the event of death. According to the Robert Koch Institute, almost 870,000 corona infections have been officially recorded in Thuringia since the beginning of the pandemic.
