Economic situation: Clinics expect restrictions for patients

Representatives of the federal states, the Bundestag and the health care system are meeting today for the hospital summit. More than half of German clinics fear having to limit patient care due to economic problems.

Around half of German hospitals expect to have to limit patient care in the next six months due to the tense economic situation. This emerges from the latest “Hospital Index” of the German Hospital Society (DKG), reports the editorial network Germany.

According to the index, 51 percent of the general hospitals surveyed assume that they will have to block individual beds or temporarily close entire wards. 41 percent of the clinics expect planned operations to be postponed. 35 percent of hospitals predict that they will have to cut staff. Six percent of the clinics even expect entire locations to be closed.

Energy aids only for a few hospitals

As a result, 71 percent of the hospitals assess their economic situation as very bad or bad. Around 80 percent of the hospitals named the cost increases that were not refinanced by health insurance companies or the state, for example in energy supply and the shortage of skilled workers, as the main causes.

“Due to the gap between the galloping inflation and the revenue development that lags behind it, the hospitals are now writing a deficit of 740 million euros every month,” said DKG boss Gerald Gass to the RND.

The head of the association reiterated his criticism that only very few hospitals could take advantage of the promised energy aid due to unfavorable detailed regulations. “In order to prevent insolvencies and the subsequent supply restrictions, the hospitals must now be economically secured in the short term and reliably,” demands Gass. The DKG invites you to a clinic summit in Berlin on Monday.