In the summer, the topping-out ceremony was celebrated at the new building of the Harlachingen hospital, high up on the fourth floor on the future outdoor terrace of the palliative care ward. As is usual on such occasions, everyone involved from Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) to Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) was in a holiday mood – about ten kilometers to the east, on the other hand, the mood was much frostier.
Because many employees in obstetrics at the Neuperlach Clinic see the new building as a signal that their facility should close and move to Harlaching. To avert this, a group of midwives, pediatric nurses and nurses have already made representations to several district committees, submitted an application to the town hall for Bogenhausen and started a petition, which more than 10,000 people are already supporting.
“From our point of view, it is obvious that the relocation of obstetrics and gynecology from Neuperlach to the new building in Harlaching has already been decided,” says Sisko Stenzel, midwife at the Neuperlach Clinic. “This is intended to close a department that works well and is known beyond the city limits for highly professional care and support for all aspects of childbirth.”
“Hospitals are reaching their capacity limits”
Sisko Stenzel and her colleagues are convinced that this is the wrong approach, especially in times of increasing birth rates and against the background of a growing city. “If you look at the forecasts, the east of Munich in particular will grow strongly. And many Munich hospitals, especially the obstetric departments, are already reaching their capacity limits.”
The protest against the impending closure of the women’s clinic in Neuperlach is the new edition of a dispute that boiled up four years ago. At that time, the restructuring concept for the Munich Clinic – as the municipal clinic with its five houses in Bogenhausen, Harlaching, Neuperlach, Schwabing and on Thalkirchner Straße is called – provided for the relocation of the Neuperlach obstetrics department to Harlaching for economic reasons. The Munich Clinic argued that obstetrics should be expanded there and in Schwabing.
Well-functioning department: the obstetrics team in Neuperlach.
(Photo: private)
In addition, these two locations are level 1 perinatal centers with a neonatal intensive care unit – unlike in Neuperlach. But not least because of the massive protests and a petition with 5700 signatures, the city council decided at the end of 2018 to keep the women’s clinic there until 2024. In addition, the health department should determine the city-wide supply situation in obstetrics so that the city council can decide on the future of the facility in Neuperlach based on these figures.
From the point of view of the group around Sisko Stenzel, however, facts are already being created with the new building in Harlaching before the results of this evaluation are available. The plans there provide for seven delivery rooms for around 4,000 births per year – just as many as there were in Harlaching (2,528) and Neuperlach (1,419) together in 2021. In addition, Sisko Stenzel reports that a coordinator has already made an appearance at the Neuperlach Clinic to talk about the future design of the delivery rooms in Harlaching. “So it’s already clear for the Munich Clinic that we should move to the new building in Harlaching.”
The Munich Clinic is updating its medical concept
The Munich Clinic says about the plans for the new building: “There are more and more young families in Munich, so a corresponding expansion of 1,500 births is planned.” More than 6,000 children are currently being born in the maternity clinics in Schwabing, Harlaching and Neuperlach; now they want to increase the capacities. “The Munich Clinic is currently developing an updated medical concept, which will be coordinated in a next step with the state capital of Munich as a shareholder,” the Munich Clinic announced.
Meanwhile, the municipal health department announces that the evaluation of the care situation in obstetrics will be completed by the end of March. A spokesman said that the perspectives of the parents-to-be and the employees would also be taken into account. After that, the topic should come to the city council in the third quarter of 2023.
However, Sisko Stenzel and the other midwives, nurses and nannies from Neuperlach fear that the closure of their department will then only be nodded. “The distances to the next delivery room will be significantly longer if ours is no longer there,” they warn in their petition. And further: “Functioning departments should not be rationalized away, but supported!”