Thousands of surgeries had to be postponed due to the additional burden on the healthcare system caused by the pandemic. This resulted in a request from SPÖ equal treatment spokesman Mario Lindner to the Ministry of Health.
For example, the palliative care ward at the Brothers of Mercy Hospital in Burgenland was closed for 447 days, one ward at Güssing Hospital for 199 days and two wards at the Salzburg City Hospital for a total of 294 days. According to the reply, Styria does not rule out future bed closures due to the renewed increase in the number of infections. The reasons given for the closure of wards in the response from the Ministry of Health include redeployment of staff to deal with the care of Covid patients and the provision of beds for Covid patients, but also infection clusters among the staff.
Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein (Greens) was unable to answer how many hospital wards actually had to be closed because the Ministry of Health does not have complete data. The minister refers to the responsibility of the federal states, not all could provide the requested data on station closures, operations postponements and passenger transport.
Lindner calls for more resources for the healthcare system and criticizes the data situation in the Ministry of Health: “The government’s lack of planning at the end of the second year of the pandemic, which is evident in this response to the query, is frightening. Responsibility is shifted to the federal states, the federal government does not provide any additional funds And all of this despite the fact that the situation in the hospitals was obviously more than critical. Sufficient financial resources are finally needed to relieve doctors, nurses and health workers and to secure our health system in the long term.”
The number of operations postponed due to Corona is also tragic, says Lindner. In Burgenland, more than 3,200 operations had to be postponed between March 2020 and December 2021, in the state of Salzburg there were 3,871 in the first year of the pandemic alone. No data are available from Upper Austria and Lower Austria.
Source: Nachrichten
