Dispute in Innsbruck

Search for nursing staff: Expensive trip to Vietnam

In its search for nursing staff, the city of Innsbruck wants to put out feelers as far as Vietnam.

(Bild: cristaltran - stock.adobe.com)

Innsbruck wants to recruit specialists for a care offensive in the Far East. The trip has been booked, but it is unclear who is going. The opposition criticizes the project as "modern colonialism": care models for families should be developed first. 

Recruiting staff in third countries: The Innsbruck city government's care strategy explicitly provides for this - in addition to making working conditions more attractive and other measures to recruit care staff.

Deputy Mayor Georg Willi would probably be predestined as head of the department for care and external relations. But he doesn't want to.

Stadtrat Markus Stoll (Das Neue Innsbruck)

Office employee Willis was a fixed starter
To this end, a delegation trip to educational institutions and cooperation partners in Vietnam is now planned. On Wednesday, the City Senate voted to approve the estimated budget of around 10,000 euros. However, as is so often the case, it all came down to details.

In this specific case, it's about who is going. The minimum requirement of city councillors Markus Stoll (Das Neue Innsbruck) and Markus Lassenberger (FPÖ) was that at least one politician responsible for the department had to be involved.

Willi and the CO₂ imprint
Initially, the government only nominated an employee from the office of Deputy Mayor Georg Willi. "He himself did not want to take part, citing the carbon footprint caused by the trip," reported Stoll when asked by the Krone. Because the government refused to go along with this, the FPÖ and Das Neue Innsbruck brought a minority vote into play: the matter would then have had to be decided by the municipal council. However, this would only have been possible after the date had apparently already been booked.

Urgent search for a compromise
The compromise was that an expert political representative would be nominated after all. The funds were released with the votes of the governing parties SPÖ, Grüne and JA. Councillor Stoll is critical of the plan: "This is modern colonialism! The city should develop care models in families first."