Overview
- A woman in her mid-50s was diagnosed at 21:10 with a Stanford-A aortic dissection at the Rohrbach hospital, a condition requiring immediate specialist surgery not available there.
- Kepler Linz, Wels-Grieskirchen, Passau and St. Pölten reported occupied teams or full ICUs and declined transfer; Salzburg agreed later, but Rohrbach said the patient had become untransportable and she died shortly after.
- Upper Austria’s health official Christine Haberlander ordered an internal review, and federal minister Korinna Schumann called for a full investigation and convened a meeting with state health ministers to improve emergency coordination.
- Hospital leadership defended the refusals, citing engaged surgical teams and no ICU capacity, while a dispute remains over whether a night helicopter evacuation would have been feasible.
- Experts and opposition figures point to systemic issues in ICU distribution, staffing and inter-hospital logistics, noting similar recent cases in Salzburg and the Salzkammergut; no criminal complaint had been filed as of the latest reports.