Help with energy costs: Lauterbach wants to avert clinic bankruptcies

Hospital closures are threatening in Germany due to rising energy costs. Federal Minister of Health Lauterbach announced help to prevent this. He rejected support based on the watering can principle Report from Berlin but off

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has promised the clinics in Germany targeted support with the high energy costs. “The hospitals are in a very special situation. If we don’t react quickly and really drastically, there will be closures,” he said Report from Berlin. According to his own statement, he will negotiate with Federal Finance Minister Christian Linder on Tuesday about the amount and form of the aid.

“What you can say for sure is that the hospitals will have a very drastic liquidity problem in the next few months,” said Lauterbach. “This needs to be resolved.” However, when asked, he rejected a special fund for the hospitals.

“Actual costs should play a role”

After the submission of the proposals by the Energy Expert Commission, his ministry immediately began with the concrete calculations as to which gaps remained in the hospitals that would have to be covered with specific support. Lauterbach expressly rejected help based on the watering can principle: “We want to have a regulation that is targeted. The actual gas and electricity costs of a clinic should also play a role.”

The situation in the hospitals is very different, because private houses in particular are often better insulated and sometimes also have a more efficient energy supply than other, often municipal hospitals. “If that were done by watering can, then the often private houses” with their mostly better building fabric would receive compensation for energy costs “that actually never arose”. It should not be the case that hospitals, which have been neglected by the federal states for years in terms of investment costs, are now also being disadvantaged in terms of energy costs.

“Do not anticipate negotiations with Lindner”

However, Lauterbach declined to make statements about the exact amount of the additional support for the hospitals. “I cannot anticipate the negotiations with Finance Minister Lindner,” he said.

In addition, honestly, it is not yet possible to estimate the amount of additional energy costs for the clinics in the coming year. He does not know how expensive gas will be in 2023. “I don’t think the hospital society can really say that either,” he added, referring to a demand from the German hospital society, which, according to its own calculations, expects additional expenditure of 15 billion euros for the clinics in the next two years.

In connection with the future financing of hospitals, the Federal Minister of Health referred to the ongoing work on a major hospital reform. “We want to overcome the case-based flat-rate system,” he said, referring to the procedure that has been in place for 20 years, of paying the clinics the same amount of money for the same service. The planned major reform will make the system much more efficient.