Must “react drastically”
Lauterbach wants to avert imminent clinic bankruptcies
10/16/2022, 6:49 p.m
Rising energy costs and high prices for medicines and food are putting pressure on Germany’s hospitals. Health Minister Lauterbach warns that the first closures will occur without state aid. In order to prevent bankruptcies, one must “react drastically”.
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach sees the real danger that hospitals will soon go bankrupt as a result of the energy and inflation crisis. “If we don’t react quickly and really drastically, there will be closures,” said the SPD politician on ARD. He is negotiating more state aid this Tuesday with Finance Minister Christian Lindner. Until then, however, he could not name “any” magnitude, he said.
The minister expressed skepticism about demands for a special fund specifically for hospitals, analogous to the 100 billion pot for additional military spending. “We cannot introduce a special fund for every area,” he said. You have to be careful there. “Everything has to be paid off.”
At the beginning of the week, the German Hospital Society had a urgent political action required. Otherwise there is a risk of numerous hospitals being closed due to the economic emergency. A general gas price cap only in March is not adequate help. Two-thirds of the uncovered cost increases were caused by rising prices for medical devices, pharmaceuticals, food and services and only one-third by high energy costs. The total funding gap will add up to around 15 billion euros in 2022 and 2023, it said.
Lauterbach said about these numbers that he knew the calculation but could not understand it. “That would mean that the German hospital society is able to estimate how expensive gas will be next year, how expensive electricity will be.” Honestly, no one knows that now. However, one can say with certainty “that the hospitals will face a very drastic liquidity problem in the next few months”. That has to be solved. In Germany there are about 1900 hospitals with about 490,000 beds.