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HEALTH

Austria Post produces ‘three-ply toilet paper stamps’ to promote social distancing

Austria’s national postal service has brought out a special edition coronavirus postage stamp, which features the country’s famous ‘baby elephant’ and is made from three-ply toilet paper.

Published: 24 October 2020 11:08 CEST
Austria Post produces ‘three-ply toilet paper stamps’ to promote social distancing
Photo: DPA

Under the motto ‘the distance which connects us’, the stamp reminds people to keep one metre distance from each other and includes cartoon sketches of a coronavirus particle. 

The stamp is made from actual toilet paper “and is the size of an actual piece of toilet paper”, according to Austria Post. The actual postage stamp component is tearable and, fortunately for anyone planning to actually use it as a postage stamp, much smaller. 

Ironically, some are concerned that the stamp – which is a tongue in cheek reference to coronavirus panic buying of toilet paper – may itself become scarce as a popular collectors item. 

The stamp costs €2.75 and all money raised will go to charity. 

 

 

 

 

The baby elephant returns

The stamp includes Austria’s famous ‘baby elephant’ – a symbol in the fight against the virus. 

This has been discussed in Austrian media as the ‘return of the baby elephant’. During the first wave of the pandemic, Austria sought to encourage participation with the social distancing requirement by telling people to stay ‘a baby elephant apart’. 

People are now legally required to stay a baby elephant’s distance apart from each other in public, provided that elephant is one-metre long. 

 

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HEALTH

Patients in Vienna face long waits for specialist health appointments

Waiting times to get appointments with health specialists in Vienna have increased significantly, a new study has revealed.

Published: 17 May 2024 09:56 CEST
Patients in Vienna face long waits for specialist health appointments

Accessing essential healthcare within a reasonable timeframe is becoming increasingly difficult for Viennese residents.

The Vienna Medical Association presented their new study this week which shows that waiting times for appointments with health specialists have increased significantly in recent years.

The study, which involved contacting over 850 doctors’ practices via so-called “mystery calls,” revealed that child and adolescent psychiatry currently had the longest waiting times in the city.

Patients can expect to wait an average of 90 days for an appointment.

Other specialisations where patients have to wait long to receive help include radiology (57 days), neurology (45 days), ophthalmology (44 days), pulmonology (36 days), internal medicine (33 days), and dermatology (28 days).

The waiting time for seeing a gynaecologist has increased fourfold since 2012, with patients now waiting an average of 32 days.

READ MORE: Why are there fewer public sector doctors in Austria?

No new patients accepted

In certain specialist areas, there is no capacity to accommodate new patients. The situation where no new patients are accepted occurs particularly often in paediatric practices, where more than half of the public healthcare practices have put a freeze on admissions.

In child and adolescent psychiatry, 40 percent do not accept new patients, and among gynaecologists, it is almost a third (30 percent). Family doctors also struggle with welcoming new patients, and many of their practices have already reached full capacity.

The Medical Association calls for immediate action, urging the health insurance sector to become more attractive and receive better funding. This could involve measures to incentivise doctors to work within the public system, potentially reducing wait times and improving patient access to care.

During the study presentation, Johannes Steinhart, president of the association, described the increased waiting times as the result of neglect within the established health insurance sector. He said he believes that the public health system is massively endangered.

Naghme Kamaleyan-Schmied, chairwoman of the Curia of the resident doctors in the association, pointed out that while the population of the federal capital has grown by 16 percent since 2012, the number of public doctors has fallen by 12 percent in the same period.

The association now wants to make the public healthcare system more attractive to doctors, which could cut down waiting times and make it easier for patients to receive care. The association’s demands for this to happen include increasing flexibility in contract options, integrating health and social professions in individual practices, reducing bureaucracy, and improving fees.

ÖGK, Österreichische Gesundheitskasse, Austria’s largest public healthcare fund, is currently creating 100 additional public health positions, with almost two-thirds of the positions already having applicants, as well as planning for another 100 positions. They also aim to create a central telemedicine service and a platform for making appointments by phone and online, which is meant to reduce waiting times and improve access to care.

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