Appointments pile up

The end of Böhler Hospital: surgery gap in Vienna is growing

Ghost hospital atmosphere in the operating theater wing of the Lorenz Böhler Hospital, where 4,751 people were operated on last year(Bild: zVg)

The time has come: no more operations can be performed at the Lorenz Böhler Hospital. The rush in the city's other hospitals is already slowly increasing. Above all, however, the number of operations backing up is growing, and the solutions to this problem are wobbling or have vanished into thin air. 

Thanks to the Easter vacations: Vienna's hospitals are still getting off lightly when it comes to taking on the emergency operations of the closed Böhler Hospital. But it's not just about emergency operations. Scheduled operations postponed until the never-never day are piling up more and more every day.

Reality instead of the "mini-Böhler castle in the air"
In the meantime, the AUVA management has also recognized that the original plan of "mini-Böhlers" in the AKH and in Meidling cannot work. At the AKH, there was no solution to the problem that medical teams from MedUni and AUVA cannot dictate to each other or take responsibility for the other hospital. In Meidling, on the other hand, where the operating theatres were already working to capacity, the Böhlerians are puzzling over where to place their operating capacity.

Where patients used to be helped, there is now a pile of goods to be moved.(Bild: zVg)

Now the AUVA management is at least taking up the staff suggestion of renting operating theaters in private hospitals. But here, too, there are problems of their own making: The Böhler doctors are supposed to operate there on an overtime basis, in addition to their already busy working hours and in addition to now usually much longer travel times and time-consuming organizational effort due to the new commute between different duty stations.

Doctors themselves warn against overtime operations
The Böhler doctors are wondering where they will find the time and energy to carry out operations during overtime. Most of them are therefore likely to turn down the offer (which is voluntary). And even if some of them still want to continue operating after a shift: A burnt-out and overtired surgeon would probably not be a desirable scenario for patients, there are also warnings within the Böhler medical profession.

The AUVA's calculation that Vienna's patients will now choose to go to the AUVA hospital in Meidling on their own is not working out for the time being: even on the first night, when there was only makeshift outpatient care at the Böhler hospital - without a single anaesthetist and without the possibility of inpatient admission - more people were treated there than on the same night in Meidling.