On Friday, the round of medical association elections in the federal states came to an end in Salzburg. The lists VAS (Vereinte Ärzte Salzburg) and WGS (Wahlgemeinschaft Spitalsärzte) around long-term Chamber President Karl Forstner, which were merged before the election, won 23 of the 33 mandates (spread over the four electoral sections). The great unknown – the new list “Future Medicine”, which also included some supporters of the vaccination-critical MFG – came up with three mandates.
The list “The Independents – Free Doctors and Doctors of Choice” got six seats, the primary doctors of the list “Performance and Responsibility, non-partisan list of senior hospital doctors” – one mandate.
48 percent voter turnout
Around 3,400 doctors were called on Friday to elect their professional representatives. Voter turnout was around 48 percent. The constitutive general assembly of the Salzburg Medical Association will take place on May 19th. Then the president and vice-president are elected by simple majority for the next five years. Anything other than another term for the hospital doctor Forstner, who has held the office since 2007, would be a surprise. On 24 June, the President of the Austrian Medical Association will be elected from among the nine State Presidents.
The curiae subdivide the hospital doctors into doctors authorized to practice their profession independently and doctors in training (turnover doctors). In the case of resident doctors, the general practitioners choose on the one hand and the resident specialists on the other.
In the run-up to the election, the appearance of the “Future Medicine” list in particular caused tension. It not only criticized the medical association as an extended arm of politics, but also included vaccination advocates and vaccination-critical doctors who are close to the MFG party. The doctor from the Tennengau in Salzburg, who made the headlines last year with the prescription of the anti-wormer Ivermectin for corona patients, was also on the list.