Survival possible through reform
Lauterbach counters report on clinic closures
05/24/2023 11:59 am
Karl Lauterbach has been working on reforming health care in clinics for a long time. There has been criticism of this for a long time. Now, however, the health minister is ironing out a report as a “false report”. It says that every second clinic could be closed.
With a view to the controversial hospital reform, Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has denied media reports that almost every second clinic has been closed. “No, that’s not true,” said Lauterbach in the ARD “Morgenmagazin”. “We have made progress with the reform. And the reform allows many hospitals that would otherwise have been squeezed out of business (…) to survive.”
They would then have to provide a little more outpatient services, “but they survive where they are needed,” emphasized the SPD politician. The “Bild” newspaper reported on Tuesday evening that the planned reform would eliminate every second clinic in some federal states. Shortly thereafter, Lauterbach had already responded to the report in a tweet and described it as a “false report”.
The hospital reform aims to reorganize the financing and structure of hospitals in Germany and at the same time improve quality. Among other things, greater specialization of the clinics is planned. In essence, the remuneration system is to be changed with flat rates for treatment cases in order to free clinics from economic pressure. The plan is to classify the network of clinics into three levels of care – from basic care close to home, through a second level with other offers, to maximum care providers such as university clinics.
With regard to the planned care reform with improvements for caregiving relatives, the Minister of Health rejected criticism from the opposition that it was only a small reform: “It is not a small reform. We spend almost 7 billion more a year. That is an increase of about 12 percent.”
Improvements were announced again on Tuesday. Accordingly, a budget that can be used flexibly with relief services for caring relatives should come. In return, a planned later increase in care services is expected to be somewhat lower. The Union had accused the coalition that those in need of care would be deprived of the additional money for the relief budget for care services. The law is scheduled to be passed in the Bundestag on Friday.