Dispute comes to a head

The secret of the flow of guest patients

Doskozil threatens Vienna with legal action.(Bild: APA/TOBIAS STEINMAURER)

The dispute between Vienna, Burgenland and Lower Austria over the care of so-called "guest patients" is coming to a head. More and more people from the provinces are complaining that they are being disadvantaged when it comes to hospital appointments in the capital. The "Krone" newspaper has the exact figures on the flow of patients between the provinces.

Every fifth patient in a publicly financed hospital in Vienna comes from another province. City Councillor for Health Peter Hacker (SPÖ) wants to drastically reduce the number of these guest patients. This seems to be happening, as more and more people - mainly from Lower Austria and Burgenland - are complaining that they are being put at the back of the queue in Viennese hospitals. Vienna's approach is legally controversial.

Burgenland and Lower Austria threaten legal action
The most affected states, Burgenland and Lower Austria, are threatening to sue the capital. The Patients' Ombudsman's Office also recently announced a need for clarification. The matter is regulated in several laws.

For example, the federal law on hospitals only refers to people in the federal territory, who must be treated; it does not mention state citizens. However, the Vienna Hospitals Act includes a passage stating that the admission of patients to public hospitals is restricted to persons who are citizens of Vienna or who have their main residence in Vienna as foreigners. The patient advocate for Austria, Michaela Wlattnig, sees a contradiction here and recently announced a legal review on ORF radio.

Vienna naturally takes a different view. "In our view, each province is responsible for providing healthcare to its own population," says Moritz Dragosits, Deputy Head of Department at MA24, the Department for Strategic Healthcare in Vienna, in an interview with the "Krone" newspaper. "As a province, we are responsible for the hospitals. And the hospitals are regulated by the Hospitals and Health Resorts Act, which sets out how hospitals are run, who is responsible and issues like that."

In the end, as always, it's all about the money
Vienna would comply with all applicable laws, emphasizes Dragosits. City Councillor Hacker and Mayor Michael Ludwig had both said that they were open to talks. As is so often the case, the main issue with guest patients is money. Vienna receives more money from the federal government as part of a 15a agreement because the city provides supra-regional healthcare.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/stock.adobe.com)

According to the city, however, these additional funds are nowhere near enough to cover all the costs for visiting patients. After deducting the additional funds from the federal government and the costs that Viennese patients incur as guest patients in other federal states, Vienna would be left with additional costs of around 400 million euros per year.

However, the City of Vienna emphasizes that there are also other issues at stake, such as help with the exchange of know-how, coordination, joint health planning for the eastern region and coordination of resources. The federal government has concluded a reform pact with the provinces that is intended to address precisely these issues. The first results should be available as early as next year.

Stocker in an interview with the "Krone"(Bild: Mario Urbantschitsch)

Federal Chancellor Christian Stocker emphasized in an interview with "Krone" on Friday: "The result I want is a healthcare reform that brings tangible improvements for people. With shorter waiting times for treatment and surgery appointments and an expansion of the statutory health insurance system. I want to focus on the patient and not the system."