While unlimited testing is allowed in outpatient settings, this is not the case in ordinations. The medical board is furious.
The Austrian Medical Association is furious. The reason is still the regulation according to which resident doctors and their staff are not exempt from the limitation to five free corona tests. Anyone who has to go to a doctor’s office and be examined for health problems will usually have to be cared for by untested personnel.
In the ORF, the Ministry of Health justified the distinction between the established area and, for example, nursing homes and nursing homes, where the limitation was lifted, with the “short patient visits” in the established area.
Szekeres: “expendable”
“The ministry obviously didn’t even understand what we doctors are: we want equal treatment for health professionals and the best possible protection for our patients. This should be a concern of a ministry of health”, comments Thomas Szekeres, president of the Medical Association of Austrian Association.
“Private practice patients are no less vulnerable than other patient groups. The omicron variant is also highly infectious, as we know – and does not distinguish between ordination and outpatient. On the other hand, thoughtless and inconsistent attempts at justification are indeed unnecessary”, says Szekeres.
no stopwatch
Vice President Johannes Steinhart sees it the same way. There are also longer contacts with patients in the private sector. “We will certainly not stand by our patients with the timer to fulfill this questionable idea of protection from infection,” says Steinhart.
“Secondly, the ministry’s argument is already on shaky ground, because, for example, outpatient clinics are once again exempt from the test limitation. I can’t understand this unequal treatment at all.”
great concern
It also raises doubts whether the Ministry of Health understands the rules of the game of this pandemic and the health system in general. “This fills me with great concern not only as a doctor but also as a citizen.”
Edgar Wutscher, president of the Federal Section of General Medicine (BSAM), is outraged at the “lack of appreciation that the Ministry of Health is showing us again here. Instead of correcting this obvious mistake, there was no reaction for days and then the A The media gave us an incomplete attempt at an in-line explanation. That’s not how you deal with a central pillar of health.”
Navigation account leo time06.04.2022, 10:11| Act: 06.04.2022, 11:15