No corona fund – that’s what black and blue plan for health and care

In the health sector, disputes between the FPÖ and the ÖVP have been particularly violent in recent years. The Blues acted with constant criticism during the difficult Corona years, the first vote of no confidence against a Salzburg governor in the fall of 2021 was the highlight.

Against this backdrop, the black-blue coalition’s health chapter, enacted last week, reads very factually. However, the FPÖ has not really asserted itself in this area either. For example, the “medical care and support” of long-Covid patients and people with vaccine injuries is described as a “care” – a wording that would probably be signed by all parties.

Especially since it also says: “We provide the necessary funds without needing our own Covid fund.” In Lower Austria, the ÖVP and FPÖ have decided on such an additional fund. The wording that “reimbursement of Covid fines is deemed neither expedient nor politically feasible” does not exactly pass as a blue negotiating success. On the other hand, the last point of the health chapter is different, which states that the presentation of surgery waiting times on the website of the state clinics needs to be improved.

Job satisfaction must improve
All parties agree that more support is needed for health and care workers. The negotiators also wrote that in the government program.

To this end, job satisfaction should be improved, staff initiative should be introduced and attention should be paid to the security of the duty roster. However, the coalition partners did not have much imagination. Because they wrote the same wording in both the health and care chapters. They only exchanged the words “health” and “care”.