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At the Vienna General Hospital, Austria’s largest hospital, vaccinations will start across the board on Tuesday. 7,000 employees should be vaccinated within six to eight weeks, director Hedwig Wetzlinger tells KURIER.
This includes MedUni medical staff as well as AKH employees from the city of Vienna. Depending on the availability of the vaccine, up to 700 people could be vaccinated per day. After the staff, it would be the students’ turn.
Willingness to participate is high
According to Wetzlinger, the willingness to participate is very high. For individual departments it is 100 percent, but at least 50 percent. Large-scale vaccinations would also start at the other Vienna Health Association hospitals next week, although they are already being carried out at individual hospitals, such as the Floridsdorf and Donaustadt clinics. Its staff were unceremoniously vaccinated Wednesday with excess doses that had been delivered to the Floridsdorf municipal nursing home.
According to a spokeswoman for the Vienna Health Association (WiGev), there is a list of priorities: therefore the greatest urgency is for Covid staff and intensive care units, but non-medical staff are also vaccinated, although after a long waiting period. “After all, this also has contact with patients,” says the spokeswoman. According to the registration system, 60 percent of employees would like to be vaccinated. An internal advertising campaign will begin next week to increase readiness.
Originally, vaccinations in hospitals should have started in early February, but due to better vaccine availability, they could be brought forward.
