Supply at risk – Experts warn of a health care “crash”.

The demographic development with the aging of the baby boomers and most recently the corona pandemic have apparently led to a sharp increase in bottlenecks, personnel problems and structural difficulties. An example is the health of children and young people, and here specifically the care in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry, said Paul Plener, head of the relevant Vienna University Clinic: “Compared to before the pandemic, we had three times as many patients after suicide attempts had to deal with last year.”

“Austria must meet European standards”
According to the expert, the health care system must respond integrally: expansion of outpatient psychiatric care, more psychotherapy offer for children and young people that is paid for from medical expenses and finally: a doubling of the number of hospital beds in child and adolescent psychiatry in order to provide a achieve “European standard”.

Markus Wieser, President of the Lower Austrian Labor Chamber, stressed the importance of rehabilitation in the field of child and youth health. There was progress here. But now parents and relatives of children and young people in these institutions must be given the opportunity to guide them through their rehabilitation through paid leave.

billion for the health of children and young people
Wieser called for the establishment of a “State Secretariat for Child and Adolescent Health in the Ministry of Health” and a “Child and Adolescent Health Billion” in budget resources. Finally, for the relatives of sick children and young people who need a lot of care, the concept of “secondary patients” must also be created due to the stress and they must be helped.

According to the experts, a restructuring of patient care from regular to inpatient areas is also essential. Karl Lehner, Managing Director of OÖ Gesundheitsholding: “Hospitals are at the top of the healthcare pyramid. We need to do much more to cross sector boundaries in healthcare. We have concrete walls between the sectors.” Many costs and inefficiencies could be saved, for example if hospital outpatient clinics and private medicine were financed, planned and managed from a single source.

“If we continue like this, the system will hit the wall”
Wilhelm Marhold, former head of Vienna’s municipal hospitals, formulated the need for reform drastically: “Not a day goes by without shortcomings in the Austrian hospital system appearing in the media. It makes no sense to go around with the flamethrower and to attack the medical world and health insurance companies (…) If we continue as before, the system will hit a wall.”

Some medicines are not available
Erwin Rebhandl, a longtime general practitioner in Upper Austria and founder of a primary care center, described the current difficulties in drug delivery: “Especially in the last two or three weeks, we have had a lot of streptococcal infections.” available in pharmacies. The actually optimally suitable antibiotic, penicillin V, would no longer have existed. In this context, Praevenire board member and hospital pharmacist Gunda Gittler advocated for mandatory storage: “In the inpatient area (hospitals; note), we are required by law to hold 14-day supplies. Our pre-suppliers have no legal obligation.”

Alexander Biach, former head of the then most important association of social security institutions and now deputy director of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, referred to the different cost developments in the individual sectors of the health care system. Spending on public and religious hospitals rose 41 percent from 2012 to 2021, but outpatient clinic spending rose 105 percent and GP fees rose 48 percent. It should therefore make sense to jointly finance and plan outpatient clinics and residential areas in order to prevent patients and services being shifted in the future due to the various payers (hospitals: mainly federal states; residential areas: mainly health insurers).