Companies complain about staff shortages because of Omikron

Dusseldorf Due to the omicron wave of the corona virus, staff are becoming scarce in many places in Germany. Karin Overlack, for example, has never had to do without so many employees during the pandemic as at the moment. Almost 80 of the 2,500 employees are absent due to infection or quarantine, otherwise there were no more than 20. Overlack heads the Heart and Diabetes Center NRW in Bad Oeynhausen, one of the world’s largest heart transplant centers.

The fact that four times as much staff is absent causes problems: one of the nine operating rooms could no longer be operated in the meantime, the diabetes center imposed a short-term admission freeze. “We can always take care of emergency patients,” says Overlack. “But this extent of the failures is new.” Otherwise, almost six percent of the doctors and nurses are missing, just nine percent.