Investigating human rights Relief is only provided to the Ministry The AOB’s concerns regarding the new provision on the deductibility of donations were discussed during the ORF TV programme “BürgerAnwalt” (“Advocate for the People”). The “relief” announced by the Federal Ministry of Finance only applies to the tax administration. For beneficiary organisations and donors, the provision means a significant increase in expenditures, administration, research, review as well as potentially expensive objections and, if necessary, appeals. The argument of the Federal Ministry of Finance that recipient organisations would spare themselves from issuing donation confirmations in the future is implausible due to the necessity to ascertain the “encoded sector-specific personal identifiers for taxes and duties” for each individual donor. 2.2.4 Health and women Paediatric care The topic of existing deficiencies in medical care for children and adolescents has long been a central concern of the AOB. Due to the difficulties in obtaining care and the unreasonable waiting times for urgently needed treatment for children in Viennese out-patient clinics during the influenza epidemic in early 2016, the AOB directed generalised criticism at the basic level of paediatric services in Austria. In an ex-officio investigative proceeding, the AOB obtained statements from the Federal Ministry of Health and Women’s Affairs and the Main Association of Austrian Social Security Institutions on this topic. Out-patient area 54 In the out-patient area, the number of contracted physicians specialising in paediatrics and adolescent medicine has basically remained constant since 2001. Here as well as in other areas, it can be determined that about half of the office-based specialists operate as doctors without a contract with public health insurance offices. Thus, at the end of 2014, there were 579 office-based specialists for paediatric and adolescent medicine, of which 303 (52.3%) had a contract with a public health insurance office. Therefore, it can be assumed that many physicians have little incentive to conclude a contract with public health insurance offices because parents are willing to pay the costs of treatment themselves to shorten the waiting times that apply for contracted physicians, even if they ultimately only receive a relatively small cost reimbursement from the competent public health insurance carrier. In addition, a list issued by the Main Association of Austrian Social Security Institutions shows that not only do large differences exist in the density of care providers from Land to Land, but the regional distribution of existing contracts for medical practice with public health insurance offices does not provide full coverage.