Clinics in the corona minus: The state must help in the country if necessary - it's about supply
Created: 12/28/2021, 4:25 PM
From: Sebastian Horsch
If necessary, the state must save clinics in the countryside, comments Sebastian Horsch.
© Armin Weigl / dpa / Schlaf / fn
The corona crisis is pushing many hospitals into the red.
Nevertheless, the state has to help if necessary, especially in rural areas, comments Sebastian Horsch.
60 percent of German hospitals assume that they will have made a loss in 2021.
Well, it was a Corona year, you could say.
As a result, many of the treatments that are economically viable for the homes have failed.
But the problem lies deeper.
Corona losses: Germany's clinic landscape was previously in the structural crisis - especially in the bacon belt
Because apart from corona losses and state aid, the German clinic landscape has been in a structural crisis for a long time.
Many classic district clinics in particular are on financially shaky feet in a brutal competition.
The often smaller houses compete against each other for patients and scarce staff.
In areas such as the Munich bacon belt, they also compete with the top medical locations in the big city, which can offer significantly greater surgical routines and thus, in case of doubt, often better quality of treatment.
Hospitals in crisis: the state must guarantee care in the area
From this point of view, it is therefore true that Germany as a whole has too many hospitals.
And it actually makes sense for clinics to work more closely together and also merge where there is too much to offer.
In spite of this, the sometimes quite popular demands in health policy Berlin to simply take half of the houses off the system in the medium term.
Such centralization may offer efficiency advantages.
But accessibility is particularly important in rural areas - and not just for older patients.
The clinics that ensure the care there in the area must therefore be kept alive if necessary by the state.
Even if they don't pay off financially.
Sebastian Horsch
