End for hospital in Vienna

Chats show extent of Böhler chaos

The Böhlerians help each other as best they can by cell phone in the chaos.

(Bild: Martin A. Jöchl, Krone KREATIV)

The debacle of the hospital closure is now hitting the teams at the Lorenz Böhler Hospital in Vienna with full force. Internal chats show the chaos: no information, no instructions, but helplessness and despondency. Last but not least, the conditions described mean danger for patients.

All that is left of the Lorenz Böhler Hospital in Vienna is a makeshift outpatient clinic. "Nobody who has anything serious is allowed to come," says trauma surgeon Heinz Brenner grimly after his first shift in the gutted hospital. During the night, he had to treat a boy with a complicated leg fracture. He would have liked to have had an anesthetist at his side. So the reassuring words of the boy's mother had to suffice.

No anesthetist far and wide
In the outpatient department, it's hard to imagine what could happen without a single remaining anaesthetist in the hospital. Staff say that people often come to the hospital after falls. Within minutes, their condition can deteriorate to the point of unconsciousness, and anaesthetists are needed for life-sustaining measures. Because he had no other choice, Brenner improvised his way through the first 24 hours after the hospital closed. He shares this fate with everyone in the team.

"It's all up in the air."

(Bild: zVg)

Without clear instructions, the Böhler teams have had to rely primarily on private chats with each other since the hospital closure to get information about where and how they can be there for patients - or simply to vent their anger and despair. The Böhlerians' chat channels have been exploding since Tuesday with messages such as "This is pure chaos", "Nothing fits at the back or the front!" or "It's a mess - and only a beating for us".

No infrastructure, but a sticky note on the orientation map in Meidling - the Böhlerians are left with nothing but gallows humor.

(Bild: zVg)

No training for unfamiliar equipment
Teams sent to Meidling report a lack of oxygen connections on "their" ward and that they are expected to operate unfamiliar medical equipment without any training: "There is zero information on how it is all supposed to work!" The fact that a sticker in Meidling identifies them as "Lorenz Böhler" only costs them a cynical laugh (see facsimile above). The three of them have to share a locker there and beg for parking or public transport tickets.

"I don't like it anymore"
Many of them are at their wits' end: "I don't like it any more", writes one team member, "we little ones are muddling along because nobody has thought of anything upstairs", another, "I'll have a look at it now. If the many unanswered questions aren't answered, I'll look for something else," wrote a third.

A nurse is desperate because she can no longer be there for her patients.

(Bild: zVg)

A nurse (see above) thinks above all about how "bad the situation can get for patients". The fact that after 33 years of service at Böhler Hospital she can no longer answer a patient's bell and help them has "broken" her. A colleague of hers sums up the last few weeks for her: "... unbelievable and completely out of touch with reality, this chaos ... to destroy such a great hospital ... Just sad and stunned. It hurts me so much."