Municipal councilor in interview – hacker: “The mask is also hanging on my neck”

“crown”: Mr. Stadtrat, you have selected a special department in the Klinik Favoriten for our interview. Looking around, it sounds like the beginning of a bad joke: a councilor from SPÖ and an editor from “Krone” meet in the psychiatric ward. So what are we doing here?
Peter Hacker: Last year in the city council we decided on a huge building program, the largest there is in the German-speaking area. We are not building a new hospital on the green field, but are renovating our existing hospitals while they are in full operation. Here in the Psychiatry the temporary building is ready, hence my invitation here.

But that’s it for the good news. According to a survey by the Medical Association, two-thirds of doctors are considering resigning. Reasons: high stress, constant patient care and a way of working that contradicts their medical care and treatment requirements. When all the doctors leave, the hospitals will be empty. What are you doing?
I found the interpretation a bit strange. According to the Medical Association, 10,000 doctors were interviewed, but only 3,500 of them belong to the Vienna Health Association. Secondly, it is not at all surprising that working people at some point consider changing jobs. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t do this from time to time.

And where do the doctors want to go? 48 percent would like to become a private doctor. And that in a situation where no general practitioner in all of Grätzel is now accepting patients and on Friday evening three pediatricians opened their practice throughout the city. What would a Peter Hacker model ending dual medicine look like?
We all agree that we do not like this development. It contradicts the central objective of a care system based on solidarity. But that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be preferred doctors. We will need changes. Problem example number one: A physician resident who has a health insurance contract must meet a territorial protection. You cannot get health insurance if another doctor in the building next door already has health insurance for the same department. This rule does not apply to physicians of choice. And then you have to ask the question, why don’t the Medical Association and the Austrian health insurance fund make this rule. You also have to ask this question: Why can someone who has completed his studies immediately open an elective doctor’s office?

So does it need a contingent of elective doctors, a cap?
In every shape. A discussion and reflection on regulations is needed.

The dozens of hazard reports are a regular slap in the face to the Vienna health system. There was a shortage of personnel in the emergency department of the Floridsdorf clinic, the department was falling apart and operating assistants took over nursing tasks. What you hear in the emergency room in Ottakring is no better: there were queues for rescue services because of ambulances, patients were lying next to each other in several rows of beds, a patient with a heart attack was only treated two hours late. In hazard notifications there is work overload, endangerment of patients, there was a notification for the entire Ottakring department. In addition, there are patients who are discharged too early or do not receive treatment appointments in hospitals, outpatient clinics that are overcrowded and the medical association even warned against triage. It all sounds terrible. Here in Vienna, a drama is unfolding in medical care, or do you see it differently?
At least that’s what it sounds like, yes. It’s a huge challenge and we have a few topics where we’re really struggling to find new talent. And one of them is the whole field of emergency medicine. And there are several issues that we are currently facing. One is that emergency medicine and pediatrics are subjects for which there is no special class. And such non-special classes are extremely unattractive.

Don’t see a supply crisis?
We have a delivery problem. We know that too. We have the AUVA hospitals Meidling and Böhler in der Brigittenau in the emergency department landscape and we are all fighting with each other over how to keep the operation running. But we can too.

Are human lives at risk as a result of this supply problem?
no This is because our employees deliver extremely committed work.

I’m not a doctor, but if patients are lying in half, resuscitation will not be so easy. And I don’t think the life of someone who goes untreated for two hours with a heart attack is greatly extended.
Uh, no question. But this is certainly not permanent.

The medical association has the following accusation: “Hacker has overslept through the wave of retirements. Of the young doctors who are trained, de facto no one remains in the hospital as a specialist. But instead of combating the staff shortage with employment initiatives, the municipality is restricting services, see bed closures.” Strong stuff. overslept everything?
Nonsense. It is someone speaking who does not know the facts (Editor’s note: what is meant is Vice Dr. Stefan Ferenci of the Medical Association.) He is an elective physician and constantly promotes elective physicians. Then tell me to use the money that goes to the hospitals to pay doctors. He prefers to hold press conferences and spread false rumors.

The next excitement is the fact that guest patients from other federal states are treated in Vienna only in case of emergency. How many have already been sent away?
We also have hospitals in Vienna that are good and can perform many of these standard procedures themselves. I ask for your understanding that I cannot expect the Viennese taxpayer to automatically swallow the damage cover if the proportion of guest patients is now well above 20 percent. In reality, these are equivalents of the Ottakring clinic or the Landstraße clinic. In plain English this means: we finance one of the two clinics exclusively for guest patients.

So some have already been sent away?
Yes of course.

The FPÖ, I know, an emotional word for you, gave the following example: a refugee from Syria is treated in Vienna, a resident of Vienna who moved to Lower Austria to retire is not.
This is a typical FPÖ comparison. Typical populist club of a very right-wing party. Refugees are just as socially insured as anyone else. And open, inclusive health care does not ask who pays the most contributions. And to the FPÖ: you have to manage to get banned for life on Twitter, where all bans were lifted after Elon Musk was taken over, like Dominik Nepp. We are only talking about his politics.

Let’s go to Corona. I rode the subway this morning. Just over a third wore no mask at all, a significant number so wrong that their senses of smell hung over them. Based on scientific expertise, can you explain to me the pandemic significance of the mask obligation in public transport?
We are currently in a transitional period, whether the pandemic will progress towards endemic development or not. We are currently seeing a new variant that is catching on in America with an extremely high contagiousness. We already see them in Austria. However, we do not yet see that this is actually problematic in making people sick. And so we will have to wait and see how it develops in the coming weeks.

More and more experts, such as the epidemiologists Eva Schernhammer or Gerald Gartlehner, find the obligation to wear face masks in public transport to be of little use.
We’ve been wearing masks on public transport for months now and it won’t hurt anyone if it stays that way for another two or three months. By the way, when did the immorality of the population begin? When a successful chancellor has decided, he visits a congregation in Vorarlberg. Then everyone said, ‘Wait a minute, we’re in lockdown and he’s being greeted with a little flag?’ The pandemic undermined that tremendously. I was in Velden with my son in the summer of 2021 and was amazed at how things went there.

You were there too.
We were the only ones walking around there with the mask on. Of course there are many who say it’s rubbish, we don’t need it anymore. Yes, I understand that too. The mask also hangs from my neck. But if we do away with the masks, then 14 days later we can’t say, ‘Oops, we were wrong. There is a new variant. Oops, we have to wear masks again.” People don’t take us seriously anymore.

Health Minister Johannes Rauch is now ending all corona measures for Austria.
If nothing unexpected happens, you can strive for it. Hopefully the virus disease plays a role.

Let’s turn to the federal party. Who will run for the SPÖ in the next National Council elections?
Best.

Who is that?
For example, the leader of the party.

Pamela Rendi-Wagner is the best social democracy has to offer?
Definitely.

Why?
I chose her.

Why?
Because I really think she’s a really good candidate.

Why?
It’s time for a chancellor. Let me answer the passion question simply: I voted for it and I stand by it.

Tell me Pamela Rendi-Wagner’s greatest success.
Its greatest success is that it pursues a successful opposition policy. You can see that in the polls.

But they are not intoxicating. The FPÖ is overtaking the SPÖ in polls, Herbert Kickl could currently claim the chancellorship. You call that successful?
Of course, we already have some political issues on the agenda that are already FPÖ issues. And so one should ask why the ÖVP is currently dealing with topics that everyone knows are the ones the FPÖ prefers. Why is our Home Secretary making such a joke about Indian refugees that the whole world is laughing at us, and they are laughing the most in New Delhi because we are probably the only country in the world that has a serious deportation deal with India. They have all traveled through Austria and are now riding a bus in Paris. We are certainly the only country that has led Indians to seek asylum. And none of that has anything to do with Hans Peter Doskozil, that would have been your next question.

Last question for the sports alderman: How many push-ups can you do?
(laughs) I don’t know, I haven’t done it in a long time.