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Health

Public health care service institutions in Austria at the municipal/regional level are subsections of the public administration. Sex workers must register at the Security Directorate of the police in Vienna or at a magistrate’s office in one of the federal states. The data provided by this registration is automatically transmitted to the relevant health care institution, where it is no longer possible to distinguish the migratory status of the woman involved because this information is not vital to the health service institutions. Such registration also eliminates the matter of anonymity, although the data are confidential, providing these data is compulsory.

Although some services are mandatory by law, each and every service is not available in each and every institution. The range of available services vary from one institution to another, and there are no standard guidelines for the offer of services, owing to the difference in the regulations from one province to another. An overall standard evaluation is not possible because of the lack of standard national guidelines. Due to the lack of nationally standardized guidelines, a standard evaluation is not possible.

In Austria, a system of control is in place. Sex workers receive a control card that contains their name, which represents a problem with anonymity. Each health check-up is registered on this control card. In the eventuality of an infection, the sex worker must return the control card, which must be shown each time that the police effect a control. If the card is not carried on the sex worker’s person or it is missing, he or she sex worker may be fined.

In almost every capital of the nine (9) federal states, there is an official health office/public health department, where sex workers, with or without health insurance, can get a health check-up for free. In other regions or in smaller towns, owing to a lack of public health departments, the sex workers must go to specialized local doctors, where they must pay for the services rendered.

Before undertaking sex work, a sex worker must undergo a health check-up to assure that he or she is from HIV/AIDS or other infectious diseases. Afterwards, at least once a week the sex worker must undergo a public health office control for sexually transmitted infection and once every three months a control for HIV.

In accordance with Articles 2 and 3 EMRK (Right of Life and Prohibition of Torture),there is protection from deportation for medical reasons if a person is HIV-positive or has other serious health problems, provided that this person would not have access to adequate health care and treatment in his or her homeland or that this person’s deportation to his or her homeland would prove to be problematic. This outcome must be decided by a juridical ruling that must be “sought and obtained” for each individual case by way of a formal request to extend/delay deportation in accordance with the Alien Police Law, specifically §46, FPG).