The Austrian Paramedic System

Unlike in other countries, the state doesn’t organize the emergency medical system itself. For example, in Germany, the firefighters are responsible for the EMS.

In Austria, the Red Cross takes care of the emergency medical system. It is the largest rescue-service provider. Besides them, there are several smaller organizations (Green Cross, Samaritan League, Maltese Emergency Service, …).

But only the Red Cross is the state-approved organization. Except for the city of Vienna, which organizes it’s own emergency medical system.

The reason the system is the way it is today has some historical reasons I don’t want to flesh out in this book.

This system is almost unique to Austria. Only in a few other states in the world, the Red Cross looks over the emergency medical system.

And that has a reason: the paramedic part of the Red Cross is only a small part of its worldwide mission. But as with the history of the Red Cross, that’s part of many other books. And would definitely blow the frame of it.

I don’t want to talk much about the Red Cross in this book as it doesn’t matter for the content and its context.