AKH hospital under fire over costs

Due to a non-transparent personnel structure, high absences of employees and exploding costs, the administration of the Vienna General Hospital (AKH) is not efficient, an audit court report stated.

The audit report, which has been confidential up to now, will become the most important issue at the city senate meeting next week. The existing shortcomings in the hospital are massive.

The reduction of extremely high costs of the infrastructure of the General Hospital is only “possible in the short or medium-term due to long-term contracts”. This means that the prime contractor will be able to continue its expensive work.

The auditors noticed “failures for decades” in the “non-transparent personnel structure” with federal employees and employees of the city.

They also criticised that 54 percent of the doctors of the Medical University of Vienna registered “at least one additional occupation”. However, the auditors were not allowed to examine what these jobs were – on the grounds of data protection.

The audit court revealed an enormous amount of absences which lead to high staff costs. For example, department aids have 44 days of sick leave per year, employees in the administration have 25 days.

“I had long conversations with the auditors and I have to say: it is good that we have started reforms”, SPÖ health city councillor Sonja Wehsely stated.

Apparently, the audit court has been accusing the federal government, the city of Vienna and the management of the Medical University of “being not organised”. However, the hospital has been rejecting all improvement attempts so far.