Vienna Medical Association on doctors’ protests in South Korea: Urgently improve working conditions for doctors in Austria – 2024-02-22 07:14:56

Vice President Kamaleyan-Schmied: “Instead of creating more study places, we finally need to make the medical profession more attractive and more flexible.”

Vienna (OTS) – In South Korea, hundreds of doctors have stopped working. In doing so, they were protesting against the government’s plans to solve the rampant shortage of doctors simply by increasing medical study places, instead of improving the poor working conditions and keeping doctors in the profession in the long term. In Austria, too, unsuccessful attempts have been made for years to counteract the lack of staffed cash register positions with the help of even more training positions. The Vienna Medical Association is calling for a rethink and a clear commitment from politicians to make the medical profession more attractive in order to stop these negative developments in Austria:

“The lack of active statutory health insurance doctors and the difficulties in filling replacements are a major threat to health care in Austria. As a general practitioner, I know this precarious situation and the associated challenges first-hand. In order to be able to take countermeasures, in addition to making the job profile more attractive, an incentive system for open cash positions is quickly needed. “Only by expanding existing resources can people’s health care be ensured in the long term and the migration of future medical professionals can be prevented,” says Naghme Kamaleyan-SchmiedVice President and Chair of the Curia of the Resident Doctors of the Medical Association for Vienna.

The Vienna Medical Association calls on politicians to implement an effective 5-point plan:

• Attractiveness – the starting bonus of €100,000 must be extended to all open cash desks and additional incentive systems must be created
• Flexibility – the job profile must adapt to the realities of people’s lives, for example through modern working time models and the flexible possibility of sharing health insurance contracts
• Support in the start-up process – facilitated the acquisition of real estate and resolution of the sales tax problem when purchasing real estate and support in the search for suitable specialist personnel
• Fair and performance-based fees and uniform catalog of services, which corresponds to the signs of the times. Conversation time must finally be rewarded and preventative examinations must become more important
• De-bureaucratization the daily work in the ordination

“It must be everyone’s primary goal to guarantee the high-quality, solidarity-based health care that has distinguished our country for decades, also for the future. In the interests of patients, everyone must finally pull together to secure our healthcare system for the future. I appeal to politicians to do everything possible to achieve this,” concluded Kamaleyan-Schmied.

Questions & Contact:

Adrian Hinterreither
+43 664 9619179
hinterreither@aekwien.at