Chartered flights brought more than 200 health workers to Austria on Monday (30 March) to ensure that care was not disrupted by COVID-19 travel restrictions, a regional official said., Euractiv announced.

On Monday, 231 Bulgarian and Romanian medics departed in the region of Lower Austria, with organised flights from Sofia and Timisoara.

Regional social affairs official Christiane Teschl-Hofmeister told public radio station Oe1: “I can’t tell you now whether this will be a one-off action or not.”

“If the need presents itself again we will try to do everything we can to fulfil it,” she said.

The Austrian health system is highly dependant on Eastern European staff. Most of them go to Austria, stay there for several weeks and return to their home countries. The Bulgarian and Romanian caregivers will be placed under fourteen day quarantine in a local hotel. They are expected to stay and work longer than just a month. The Lower Austria state needs 70 healthcare workers, but more people were hired as a “security measure”. 

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