ÖÄK-Mayer: In order to prevent a wave of strikes, politicians and doctors must sit down together immediately!

2023-07-01 08:20:06

Vice President of the Austrian Medical Association calls for a crisis summit for all of Austria to prevent worse things from happening after the warning strike in the Ottakring Clinic.

Vienna (OTS) – “If the management of the Vienna Health Association and Vienna City Councilor for Health Peter Hacker really believe that all of the strikers’ demands have already been implemented or have been dealt with, then they are playing down the situation. Because the warning strike was important and right, because it doesn’t look like there will be any quick improvements,” commented Harald Mayer, Vice President of the Austrian Medical Association (ÖÄK) and Federal Curia Chairman of the employed doctors, on the reactions of politicians to the one-hour warning strike held yesterday, Friday, in the Klinik Ottakring, which drew attention to the acute shortage of staff. According to the strike committee, this even goes so far that with the current staffing, serious patient care at the Ottakring Clinic cannot be guaranteed over the autumn and winter.

For Mayer, this is just the beginning and therefore high time for politicians to stop playing things down – and not only in Vienna. “Politically responsible people across Austria belong at one table in order to finally work out solutions together to relieve the hospitals – because not only at the Ottakring Clinic there are crashes everywhere. If a crisis summit with the Federal Ministry, us as the Medical Association and other important stakeholders doesn’t take place now – when will it?” Mayer asks. “If that doesn’t happen, I fear there could be a wave of strikes.”

The Federal Curia Chairman of the employed doctors of the Austrian Medical Association referred to the resolution unanimously passed at the 147th ÖÄK Chamber Day a week ago with concrete demands and ideas for the health care of the future in Austria. “What we urgently need is open on the table: more resources for prevention and care, a digitization offensive with solutions that also work and free doctors from unnecessary bureaucracy – and, above all, efficient management of patient flows according to the principle of digital before established outpatient before hospital outpatient stationary as well as more money in the system and more staff. As a medical association, we are always ready for constructive discussions on this basis.”