Worst in NRW
Alliance complains about numerous clinic closures
December 19, 2023, 3:17 p.m
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The Clinic Rescue Alliance is alarmed: 22 hospitals are apparently having to close this year alone. Many more are at risk of extinction. Some clinics make “billions in profits every year,” but basic care is “saved back,” critics complain.
According to a recent survey, 22 hospitals in Germany had to close for economic reasons this year. The Clinic Rescue Alliance said that almost a hundred more are currently at acute risk of closure. Houses in rural areas are most affected by closures. The most closures are in North Rhine-Westphalia, followed by Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate.
The alliance, which includes a number of regional initiatives, fears a lack of medical care in rural areas. The closures threatened human lives and weakened communities, said Jorinde Schulz from the group “Common Goods in Citizens’ Hands.” “Hospital clear-cutting is rampant”. This is a consequence of the privatization of the system. Some hospitals make “billions in profits every year,” but basic care is “saved,” criticized Schulz.
According to the alliance, there have been 66 hospital closures since 2020, affecting 5,400 employees. The reasons include “public under- and misfinancing”, which favors large and highly specialized private clinics.
Smaller rural clinics are worse off
The controversial flat rate per case, according to which hospitals bill for medical services according to a fixed key, could allow them to concentrate on profitable industries such as orthopedics or cardiology. Smaller houses in rural areas, on the other hand, would have to provide less lucrative basic and emergency care and would therefore be systematically worse off.
Among other things, the alliance is calling for an end to the flat rate per case and also a ban on returns for hospitals. Houses threatened with closure would have to benefit from immediate financial help in order to “restore comprehensive inpatient emergency care”. Otherwise, “clinic deaths will continue,” warned the Clinic Rescue Alliance.
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach from the SPD had already announced in the summer that he wanted to limit the flat rate per case as part of a hospital reform. According to the alliance’s count, there are a total of 1,893 hospitals in Germany – 21 percent fewer than 30 years ago. The number of beds fell by almost 30 percent in the same period. The number of patients, on the other hand, rose slightly to 16.8 million annually today.