Clinic threatened by a Lauterbach earthquake

Created: 2022-12-23 04:58

By: Hans Moritz

There is no alternative to expanding the emergency room.

She's been way too small for years.

© Hans Moritz

The hospital reform planned by Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) could have serious effects on Klinikum Erding and Klinik Dorfen.

Erding - If you only fall into the first of three care levels, there is a risk of closing several departments.

District Administrator Martin Bayerstorfer (CSU) and hospital director Dr.

Dirk Last at the annual press conference.

Cooperation with the clinics in the area of ​​the rescue association – Freising and Ebersberg – is now being considered.

The establishment of a paediatrics department is probably off the table, but that could also shake obstetrics.

The big question now is: What will become of the 50 million expansion program for the district hospital.

In principle, he recognizes the need for reform, admitted Last.

And it is also right to replace the case-based flat rates, at least in part, with a provisional flat-rate.

"Unfortunately, however, the cold structural cleansing continues," says the director - in other words, the thinning out of the clinic map.

As is well known, Lauterbach wants to restructure these: small, predominantly outpatient wards, medium-sized houses with a higher range of services and maximum care providers such as university hospitals.

"Our goal is to get into the second category," said Bayerstorfer.

Then probably little would change.

But that is not certain.

And even if they did: Last and Bayerstorfer admitted "that we don't know how the Dorfen site will continue".

Because it is listed as a separate facility in the hospital plan and not as a pure branch of the Erdinger Klinikum.

But Dorfen only has 42 beds, which could be too small for the reform.

Even if Erding comes in the second category, the pending minimum quantity rule of the Federal Joint Committee on Health Care remains.

According to this, clinics are only remunerated for services that are provided in a certain number - as reported, an acute threat to the breast center in Erding.

Bayerstorfer and Last have recognized this danger - and are ready for an innovation that was unthinkable a few months ago: "We are considering cooperation with the neighboring clinics," said the district administrator.

The offices and clinic management of Erding, Ebersberg and Freising are already in talks.

Because in all three houses, the minimum quantities are sometimes undercut.

As a result, all three clinics would no longer get their offers financed.

But if they bring services together in one place, the three of them would achieve the minimum quantities - and could survive.

But politics and management are not only worried about the Dorfen location, obstetrics in Erding are also (again) in danger.

Bayerstorfer admitted: "We have buried the efforts to set up a pediatric department." However, there are plans that the health insurance companies will only reimburse the services of delivery rooms and obstetrics if they are connected to a children's clinic.

But these are only available in Munich and Landshut as well as in Starnberg in the south of the state capital.

Last and Bayerstorfer wonder, however, whether the houses in the big cities would be able to handle all births from the surrounding area.

According to the district administrator, the lower limit is around 700 deliveries a year – “and we’ve always just barely reached that for years”.

Here, too, cooperation with Ebersberg and Freising could be considered,

The impact of the reform is still unclear.

The federal government is responsible, but hospital planning should remain a matter for the federal states.

Bayerstorfer announced that he wanted to get as much as possible for Erding through the state government.

“It remains our goal that as few citizens as possible have to leave the district for hospital treatment.

He fundamentally criticizes the reform: "Nothing was learned from Corona."

It is now more than uncertain whether the big expansion will come.

"But there is a need for action," emphasized Last.

There is no way around enlarging the emergency room and upgrading the operating theater.

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