2023-11-13 20:47:48
Dark clouds have gathered over the German hospital landscape. They also showed up at the German Hospital Day in Düsseldorf on Monday, when showers rained down on the congress center. The weather reflects the gloomy mood in the industry, said the President of the German Hospital Association, Ingo Morell: “We are standing in the rain and are being left out in the rain.” The often talked about turning point also applies, if turned negatively, to health facilities.
There is now a risk that the equality of living conditions in the city and the country will be at risk, that the closure of many clinics will be knowingly accepted as a result of a “cold structural change” and that the wage increase for employees who were applauded during the pandemic will be made , the money is missing. The increasing wages are not being adequately financed, Morell complained, citing a new survey by the German Hospital Institute.
According to this, 90 percent of the clinics see the non-refinanced costs as the main cause of their difficulties, which is even more serious than the shortage of skilled workers. Around half of the houses had to cut staff, up to 10 percent could not avoid location tasks, 42 percent planned to limit their services, for example through temporary station closures.
Lauterbach sees the situation as less dramatic
According to the survey, 23 percent expect financial relief through the planned quick payment of the care budget, while 6 percent hope for this from an increase in the care fee. The hospitals could still pay the Christmas bonus. But 60 percent are unable to make these payments from existing resources, but instead need grants from their sponsors, bank loans or even both. Overall, 80 percent see a deterioration in liquidity, says Morell. He therefore called for full inflation compensation in order to close the gap between expenditure and income and avert the growing risks of insolvency.
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD), who joined the hospital day via video, described the situation as less dramatic. In the first half of 2023, the clinics received 7 percent more money, while pharmacies and general practitioners only received 2 percent. As current financial support, the federal government is paying around 3.2 billion euros in energy aid until spring 2024. In addition, as part of the new transparency law, 6 billion euros would be allocated to compensate for shortfalls in nursing revenue.
“I dare to predict that if we decide on the rates as planned, a widespread major hospital death in 2024 can be ruled out,” said Lauterbach. Here and there some locations cannot be maintained because occupancy only reaches 50 to 60 percent. Overall, however, the situation is improving, not least because the hospital law to be passed in the first half of 2024 contains a transformation component to provide economic support for the clinics in the transition period.
Current structure “not viable”
The reform serves the precise purpose of preventing uncontrolled deaths in hospitals. However, the current structure is not viable because 30 percent of the beds are empty and the outpatient potential is large. The following applies to the remaining clinics: “We need specialization. Not everyone can do everything, not everyone should do everything.”
The outlook for the industry “is good overall,” assured the minister. Hospitals would become interesting and attractive jobs again. Many bills ensured this. Lauterbach mentioned the reform of the rescue and emergency services, the two new digital laws including artificial intelligence, more options for outpatient treatment in clinics, the medical research law for accelerated clinical studies to be presented this month and various nursing laws.
In the next few weeks he will present a nursing skills law that will allow staff to use their skills more broadly. “Many things that the nursing staff can do, they are not allowed to do, we will change that,” said the minister. “It’s about liberating care.”
Josephine Walther and Janika Schrecke Published/Updated: Christian Geinitz, Berlin Published/Updated: Recommendations: 110 Johanna Kuroczik Published/Updated: Recommendations: 20
The Health Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU), said in Düsseldorf that it was unclear to him how the clinics could finance the increasing personnel costs for doctors and technical staff; There is only a solution for care. The Congress President of the Hospital Day, Michael Weber, assured that the hospitals were ready for change and reform, but their committees felt excluded in the planning. If the financial pressure does not change, “the current staff shortage would lead to a flight of personnel and the structural reform would lead to unstructured hospital deaths”.
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