Vienna seals Favoriten medical practice after serious violations

Authorities sealed a medical practice in Favoriten after an inspection found serious shortcomings, ORF reported. The inspection uncovered suspected serious fraud, suspected undeclared work, hygiene failures and medicines that were expired or improperly stored.

Investigators also found grounds to suspect that patients had been treated by a man who had not been authorised to practise medicine for more than ten years. The practice offered treatments including Botox injections and circumcisions. The man allegedly used the stamp of another doctor who had only recently begun practising at that address. Authorities also identified a case of suspected undeclared work and the improper receipt of minimum-income support.

Expired medicines and syringes were found, along with opened medicine vials that had not been stored properly. Officials also seized medicines not authorised for use in the European Union. Some medicines had been left in an unlocked rolling cabinet in the waiting room, accessible to people there, according to the Group for Immediate Measures.

The inspection also found that the practice had no required emergency equipment and could not provide inspection records for several medical devices, including an electrocardiogram. Inspectors reported unsafe electrical wiring and sockets partly torn from the wall.

The man was reported multiple times under the Medical Practitioners Act, while police filed reports over suspected serious fraud. Authorities sealed the practice and changed its door locks. The inspection involved city agencies, police, the Vienna Medical Chamber and the Austrian Society for Quality Assurance and Quality Management in Medicine.