Recent media reports about his high earnings may cost Harald Mayer his position as chair of the Federal Section of Employed Physicians and vice president of the Austrian Medical Chamber (ÖÄK). At next Thursday’s section meeting of the ÖÄK, he is expected to face a vote of no confidence initiated by the Lower Austria chamber, the APA confirmed on Sunday after an online report by Die Presse. The justification: his conduct is considered capable of damaging the image of doctors and their representatives.
Mayer, who is also vice president and section chair of employed physicians in the Upper Austria Medical Chamber, is said—according to a Falter report from late November—to have received total compensation (salary plus payments from both chambers) of around 26,000 euros per month over several years. For his business trips from Schärding to Vienna, up to twice a week, he is alleged to have used a taxi instead of the train. Removing the 65-year-old, whose term in the Upper Austria chamber ends at the end of the year and in the ÖÄK in March anyway, would require a two-thirds majority.
Mayer last made headlines in 2023 when he called for the reintroduction of an unlimited emergency room fee. Patients who are not emergencies and who come to a hospital outpatient clinic without a referral from a general practitioner, specialist, or the 1450 health hotline should, in his view, have to pay all costs for examinations and treatments themselves. The proposal was rejected not only by the Health Ministry and the public health insurer ÖGK but also by the Austrian Medical Chamber and the Vienna chamber, which distanced themselves from it.
