2023-07-07 20:43:23
Does Austria have too few doctors? Politicians are yelling yes, but a MedUni rector is clearly opposed – and Martin Thür is also clearing things up.
In this year’s entrance test, more than 11,000 applicants competed for one of the 1,850 places for medical studies. However, because there is a shortage of doctors in hospitals almost everywhere – in the coming years more than a third of practicing doctors will have passed their legal retirement age – the call for more training places is getting louder and louder.
Vienna’s City Councilor for Health, Peter Hacker, also calls for an increase in the number of study places, since all in all only 70 percent of doctors who have completed their studies in Austria also work in this country. The Medical Association sees a problem with the working conditions in the health system.
“We have no shortage of doctors!”
In the ZIB2 Friday night struck Wolfgang Fleischhacker, Rector of the Medical University of Innsbruck, clearly supports the medical association: “We don’t lack doctors, we just lack attractive positions. We don’t place them where they can secure their care.” There are many adjustments that need to be made to the system as a whole, because “what happens following you get your doctorate is in the hands of many other players, but not the universities,” says the professor.
“Everyone pushes the hot potato around in circles,” commented moderator Thür on the mutual recriminations. “You’re right,” admitted the rector. The situation also annoys him personally, but he still pleads for a “profound examination of the health system”. Politicians must “make changes in their own system to accommodate the trained doctors.” The little-appreciated panel doctor tariffs are also a piece of the jigsaw puzzle.
Wolfgang Fleischhacker, Rector of the Medical University of Innsbruck, visiting Martin Thür in the ZIB2 on July 7, 2023. Screenshot ORFUnis are “with their backs to the wall”
But why not just train more doctors when so many prefer to practice privately? He resists it for two reasons, explained Fleischhacker. On the one hand it is tax money that would have to be spent on it, but from his point of view it would probably be better spent differently and on the other hand he simply didn’t have more space and staff for it: “We don’t have more capacity […] It’s also a problem of quantity on the part of the trainers,” the universities have “a bit with their backs to the wall.”
Wolfgang Fleischhacker, Rector of the Medical University of Innsbruck, visiting Martin Thür in ZIB2 on July 7, 2023. Screenshot ORF “Are not Numerus Clausus refugees”
When Martin Thür uttered the term “numerus clausus refugees,” the professor broke through into Fleischhacker. He firmly rejected this designation and informed Thür that these were normal young people who wanted to study medicine. Because, according to the university manager, some would also meet the criteria for admission to study in Germany, but would still prefer to study in Austria, “because it’s just beautiful here, and fine, and pleasant!”
Fleischhacker is concerned regarding how the political discourse is conducted using such terms: “You can’t always look at it through the same glasses. That’s an additional thing that worries me regarding the discussion. There is such a polarizing black-and-white painting: Here the good Austrians, because the bad numerus clausus refugees who are taking away our university places… I don’t think that’s a constructive discussion.”
Nav-Account rcp Time07.07.2023, 22:43| Akt: 07.07.2023, 23:12
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