Former Austrian health minister Andrea Kdolsky dies at 63

Former health and family minister Andrea Kdolsky has died at 63 after living with cancer for several years, ORF reported. Lower Austria Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner paid tribute to her as a strong-willed person with great determination.

Kdolsky was a doctor and staff representative before the Austrian People’s Party sent her into government nearly 20 years ago. The Vienna-born anaesthetist was known as a forceful advocate and chaired the university lecturers’ union. In 2002, she called a strike against a university reform. Before studying medicine, she also studied law and business administration.

She later became managing director of the Lower Austrian State Hospitals Holding. In 2007, she joined the government of Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, serving as minister for health and family affairs.

Kdolsky left the People’s Party in 2023 after it formed a coalition with the Freedom Party in Lower Austria. During national coalition talks between the People’s Party, Social Democrats and NEOS, she advised NEOS on health policy. She stood for NEOS in the municipal election in Purkersdorf, her home municipality, last year.

This year, Kdolsky was working on plans for a centre for people with cancer on behalf of the state of Burgenland. Governor Hans Peter Doskozil had appointed her to lead the Maggie’s Center project the previous year. She received her cancer diagnosis two years ago and spoke publicly about her illness.

Mikl-Leitner said Kdolsky had made important contributions as both a politician and a doctor, and that her openness about cancer had given others strength and courage. NEOS state party leader Indra Collini also expressed her grief, describing Kdolsky as a committed politician who fought passionately to improve healthcare while remaining focused on solutions.