After Battling Cancer

Former Health Minister Andrea Kdolsky Has Passed Away

Andrea Kdolsky went public with her cancer diagnosis to give others courage.(Bild: Reinhard Judt)

Former Health Minister (ÖVP), physician, and author Andrea Kdolsky succumbed to cancer on Wednesday. Three years ago, Kdolsky went public about her illness to give others courage. Now she has lost her battle against the insidious disease. 

“Andrea had a special ability to see people—especially those who were all too often overlooked. She gave a loud and strong voice to those who had none of their own,” her former partner, Philipp Ita, wrote in an emotional farewell message on Facebook: “Your voice will be missed. But it will not be silenced. Farewell, dear Andrea, we’ll see each other again!”

A native of Vienna, she had studied medicine and, before her time as health minister, had been a specialist in anesthesiology at Vienna General Hospital (AKH). Even during her studies, she was politically active in the Austrian Medical Union (ÖMU), a university student group, and later joined the university faculty union. In January 2007, she became the ÖVP Minister of Health in the government led by Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer (SPÖ) and Vice Chancellor Wilhelm Molterer (ÖVP). 

Until she took office as minister, Kdolsky smoked regularly and later spoke out in favor of maintaining smoking-permitted establishments. She also caused a stir with her “roast pork” remark, though she repeatedly emphasized afterward that she had been misinterpreted. Distributing condoms to students in the presence of media representatives also drew criticism, even from within her own party. 

Kdolsky later withdrew from active politics. In May 2023, she even resigned from the People’s Party after it had concluded a coalition agreement with the FPÖ in the Lower Austrian state parliament. 

Shortly thereafter, she went public with her cancer diagnosis—but not to elicit sympathy, as she also emphasized to the “Krone”: “Now I want to give a voice to those who don’t dare to talk about their illness because cancer is still a taboo. Although a great many people are facing this diagnosis, and in the future there will be even more.”

As recently as May of this year, she spoke about her new role in Burgenland: leading the planning efforts for Austria’s first cancer support center, the “Maggie’s Centre,” which is being built in Oberwart: “I need this work like the air I breathe. I’d be feeling much worse if I were just sitting around at home.” 

Now Andrea Kdolsky has succumbed to the disease she had fought so vehemently for so long.