Braunau primary school students are fit for the health care system

Tick ​​bites, colds, diarrhea and the like can be unpleasant, but are not cases that require hospital treatment. Emergencies, serious health problems and planned interventions are handled there, but minor complaints are not treated. Something that many patients are not (or no longer) aware of – many come to the hospital with minor complaints, says Corinna Hirzinger, the medical director at Braunau St. Josef Hospital. “This blocks important resources for emergencies,” she says, explaining what can happen when people no longer differentiate between which health care facility is responsible for which health problems.

Home remedies can often help

“Many people of different ages no longer know what they can do themselves when they are ill,” she says. So she had the idea of ​​starting with the youngest children and initiated a school project for twelve classes at the Braunau and Mattighofen elementary schools. A total of 261 children took part and learned in a playful way how to find their way around the health care system. The project was divided into two teaching units in the schools and an excursion to Braunau Hospital. In the teaching units, senior physician Katharina Danner and qualified nurses Eva Arnold and Tanja Gresslinger showed what illness means and what you can do yourself to alleviate symptoms. Home remedies were tried out, including lemon wraps, vinegar patches and an electrolyte mixture.

All parents of the participating children were given the Austrian Chamber of Pharmacists’ brochure “Home Remedies for Children”. This brochure also included an information sheet that provided information about the right paths and contacts in the health service. To ensure that all parents understand all the information, this information sheet was handed out in eight different languages.

The excursion to Braunau Hospital was certainly particularly exciting for the students. The aim of this was, on the one hand, to take away the children’s fear of hospital and, on the other, to explain in which cases one should go to hospital. Insights into this were provided by the physiotherapy, X-ray and dietetics departments. The children were also able to get a taste of the various jobs that are carried out in the hospital on this trip. “Knowledge creates health and lays the foundation for a healthy life, while at the same time relieving our health facilities of avoidable burdens,” said State Health Minister Christine Haberlander, praising the Braunau project.