Image: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH
In Vienna, a conflict has been smoldering for months because of the lack of staff in the hospitals. On Wednesday, the Vienna Medical Association presented city politicians with a list of demands, which primarily included a stay and return bonus of EUR 24,000 for each of the approximately 30,000 employees in Vienna’s hospitals.
“There is a conflagration in Vienna’s hospitals – and we have to extinguish this fire immediately,” said Stefan Ferenci, Vice President of the Medical Association. As an immediate measure, the premiums demanded by the Medical Association are intended to prevent further staff departures and to encourage retired doctors and nursing staff to return to hospital work. Specifically, 24,000 euros are to be paid out tax- and social security-free to all healthcare professionals who have left the Viennese hospitals in the past five years and are now committed to working in a Viennese hospital again for two years.
The Vienna Medical Association is also demanding 24,000 euros for everyone who has kept the Viennese hospitals running in the past pandemic years – also on the condition of a two-year obligation to continue working in a hospital in the city.
Ferenci expects costs of a maximum of 675 million euros for this measure. According to Ferenci, a functioning health system must be worth it to city politics.
Vienna’s City Councilor for Health Peter Hacker (SP) reacted coolly to the doctors’ demands: “It has been clear since today: the chamber is only about money.” If you count the wishes, including the employer’s contributions, you come up with additional costs of around one billion euros per year only in Vienna. “We currently have a total expenditure of 2.4 billion euros for the staff in the health network and in the private fund hospitals. There would now be an additional one billion or four billion for the whole of Austria. I will take that into the financial equalization negotiations with the federal government and then Let’s see what the Minister of Finance has to say about this,” said Hacker.
Source: Nachrichten
