Municipality gives up home

Outcry from nursing staff before the new takeover

The municipality of Altmünster wants to hand over the retirement home to the social welfare association(Bild: Wolfgang Spitzbart)

Due to acute staffing problems and a high deficit, the municipality of Altmünster no longer wants to run the retirement home. The Gmunden Social Welfare Association is to take over the running of the care facility in future. The staff are unsettled and sharply critical of the plans. 

The municipality of Altmünster has been running its own retirement home since 1973. This could soon come to an end. Faced with an annual deficit of 900,000 euros, the municipal council passed a resolution in principle for the takeover by the Gmunden Social Welfare Association (SHV) following a secret ballot.

SP local councillor Elisabeth Feichtinger voted against the takeover: "With sufficient nursing staff and full occupancy, the home would cover its costs."

The municipal leadership did not react to the wave of redundancies over the last three years, although the reasons were clear and could be resolved.

Elisabeth Feichtinger, SP-Vizebürgermeisterin

The staff also reacted indignantly. In a statement, they criticized the fact that neither Mayor Martin Pelzer (ÖVP) nor the management had sufficiently addressed the concerns of the staff and the shortage of skilled workers. There have been 16 redundancies in the last three years compared to eleven new appointments. The staff shortage led to the closure of the Sonnenhof in 2022 with ten beds and the entire basement with 14 beds in the current year.

No attempt was ever made to maintain long-term employment relationships or avert planned redundancies.

Mitarbeiter des Altenheims

The announcement of the takeover by the social welfare association is expected to cause great uncertainty among the staff. "For many years, people from Altmünster in particular were able to take advantage of a care place close to home. The opportunity to have a say in who gets a care place in the home will be lost if the SHV takes over," say the nursing staff.

Mayor rejects criticism
Mayor Pelzer rejects the criticism: "We are not the only retirement home with staffing problems. The shortage of nursing staff is omnipresent. That's why the municipality of Laakirchen also had to hand over the retirement home."