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HEALTH

Vienna mayor calls for ‘caution’ as Austria pushes ahead with lockdown end

Mayor of Vienna Michael Ludwig said on Saturday that the situation in the capital’s hospitals did not justify the government's recent decision to lift most restrictions against the spread of the coronavirus in the coming weeks.

Published: 17 April 2021 15:17 CEST
Vienna mayor calls for ‘caution’ as Austria pushes ahead with lockdown end
Vienna's mayor Michael Ludwig (L) arrives for a novel coronavirus antigen rapid test on December 7, 2020. credit ALEX HALADA / AFP

“I am cautious and I don’t want to raise anyone’s expectations,” Ludwig of the Social Democrats told broadcaster Ö1 – a day after Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said that most restrictions would be lifted next month.

Ludwig said that there had been no significant improvement in the situation in Vienna’s intensive care wards in recent weeks, even if occupancy had dropped slightly. “It won’t be possible to open everything in one go,” he cautioned.

There are currently over 500 Covid-19 patients in Austria’s intensive care wards.

Kurz promised in a press conference on Friday that lockdown measures in the areas of culture, sport, gastronomy and tourism would be relaxed in May. 

“We are in the last metres in dealing with this pandemic. Freedom is within one’s grasp,” Kurz said optimistically after meeting with state leaders and health experts in Vienna on Friday. 

Kurz said the deliberations were “swift and harmonious”, despite divergent opinions on which path Austria should take out of lockdown. 

However, he declined to give specifics of the measures that would be relaxed in May, except to say that the easing would come into effect at the same time across the entire country.

READ MORE: ‘Freedom is near’ – Austria to relax most coronavirus measures in May

Meanwhile, the state of Burgenland is forging ahead with plans to end its lockdown next Monday, a decision that has come in for criticism in other parts of the country.

Ludwig said that Burgenland was moving ahead too quickly, stressing that, “I have chosen a different path because the health of the people is the most important thing to me.”

SPÖ leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner also said that the state on the Hungarian border risks causing a public health fiasco due to the high level of intensive care occupancy in its hospitals.

Roland Fürst, a leading figure in the Burgeland government, responded by saying that, “all of these accusations are completely absurd and testify to a narrow understanding of political responsibility. 

“Who actually takes responsibility for the massive psychological, physical, social and financial problems that are already escalating and their resultant damage?” he said.

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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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