Care: “Politicians only want to cover up their omissions”

With a duration of three years, the diploma training in health and nursing is the highest nursing profession. Starting next year, it can only be completed at universities of applied sciences, but those interested need a high school diploma. With this requirement he drives Bund “drive the care up against the wall”, warns the person responsible Social Provincial Councilor Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer (VP). He is supported by Chamber of Labor President Andreas Stangl and Medical Association President Peter Niedermoser.

The Austrian Health and Nursing Association (ÖGKV) counters that this is not true. In the search for “simple solutions”, politicians, the labor and medical associations would attack the training. They just want to “cover up political failures”.

More money for caregivers

“The training works “very well”, says ÖGKV President Elisabeth Potzmann. The fact that there is a shortage of staff is due to demographic developments on the one hand, but also to the general conditions. “These must be changed”, not the training, according to Potzmann Nurses don’t just work out of charity, they also want to get a decent salary.” In a study by Gferer&Gferer, 56 percent of those surveyed said that the salary was a reason for leaving the nursing profession. 47 percent gave a lack of appreciation, 44 percent the staff shortage.

Against diploma without Matura

From 2024 it should eno longer give a diploma training for people without a high school diploma at nursing schools. The ÖGKV strictly rejects the fact that the diploma can be completed in this way – Hattmannsdorfer, Stangl and Niedermoser had contacted Health Minister Johannes Rauch (green) about this. That would tear a gap in the system: nobody without a high school diploma would opt for the lower-ranking, two-year training course to become a nursing assistant, because everyone wants to study for a degree, so the fear goes.

There is already a gap in the system, counters Stangl. One that Corona and the more strenuous working conditions associated with it ripped. Many nurses have resigned. Therefore, the transition period must be extended until the switch to a mere FH training.

Potzmann warns that there is also a “dead end in training”. “Without the Matura, the graduates at the universities can no longer get any further.”

Those who do not have a high school diploma would already have the opportunity to become a nursing assistant within two years and then complete a bachelor’s degree in another two years, says Thomas Pixner, a legal scholar at the University of Salzburg.

International exception

Wolfgang Kuttner, state chairman of the ÖGKV: The fact that more qualified staff is needed “also has its reasons, because we are facing major challenges in the care of chronically ill people.” The diseases are becoming more and more complex, which is why more “university basic training in the health professions” is needed. 91 percent of graduates would later “work in bed”. According to insider circles, the majority should be at the hospital, not at the nursing bed.

If Austria were to offer the diploma course without the Matura, then you would be pretty much on your own internationally, says Kuttner. In the other EU countries, the training is offered without exception at technical colleges or universities.

Hattmannsdorfer’s office countered on Wednesday afternoon that the international comparison should be viewed critically, because the competencies of the individual nursing professions are regulated differently in the different countries.