In Austria, around 2,000 children and adolescents currently lack health insurance. The Vienna Children and Youth Advocacy Office (KIJA) drew attention to this issue during a press event on Tuesday afternoon. As a result, costs for medical emergencies, accidents, and hospital stays are not covered. Affected children are also unable to participate in school trips, project days, or holiday camps, the agency said.
“This means a fundamental child right is not being guaranteed, and inequality is worsening,” said Vienna’s Children and Youth Advocate, Sebastian Öhner. He called for this gap to be closed by automatically including this group—especially those at high risk of child poverty—in health insurance coverage through regulation, as was done for refugees from Ukraine.
2,200 Children Placed In Care In Vienna
The KIJA also called for greater accountability in upholding children’s rights and for mandatory protection frameworks, with Öhner urging stronger involvement of children and young people in developing such policies.
The number of children placed in care in Vienna has recently risen sharply to over 2,200. “Crisis centers are almost always overcrowded,” said Peter Sato, Ombudsman for Children and Adolescents in Crisis Centers.
Facilities designed for eight residents often care for ten to twelve children and adolescents, Sato reported. Group composition can also be problematic. When preschool-aged children are housed under the same roof as 15-year-olds “who have just been released from juvenile detention, it creates problems that the system struggles to manage,” he said. Children and young people repeatedly report feeling unsafe in crisis centers and lacking spaces for privacy or retreat.
