The annual accounts are not yet ready, but it is clear that the city hospitals made a large loss last year. The municipal company recently expected a minus of 36 million euros. The causes are manifold. Far fewer patients were treated in the clinics than expected – also because a three-digit number of hospital beds could often not be occupied due to the chronic shortage of staff.
In addition, energy costs have risen sharply. The Munich Clinic has also been extremely burdened, if not taken over, with its construction program. The renovation and the new buildings in Schwabing, Harlaching, Bogenhausen and Neuperlach will cost more than one billion euros. The outlook for this year also looks bleak – after many hard years of restructuring, the Munich Clinic with its five locations is financially back as it was at the beginning: as a restructuring case.
The executive floor has therefore been working on a new medical concept for some time, it should be titled “Target Image 2030”. The details are still unknown; However, it is clear that, among other things, a reduction in the number of beds and the closure or merger of wards are being considered. Actually, the city council should have decided on the specific proposals in a non-public meeting in the first quarter of this year. But now it is becoming apparent that it will take a while. The future of the Munich Clinic will have to wait.
None of the previous management trio will remain in office
The supervisory board of the municipal hospitals will meet next Thursday. The new medical concept should have been presented there. However, two weeks before the meeting, the subject was removed from the agenda. They do not want to define a concept before the new management is in office, so the reasoning. Because what was not foreseeable a few weeks ago: a radical new beginning is taking place at the top of the company. All three managing directors should or must be replaced. Clinic boss Axel Fischer announced his retirement before Christmas, he wants to retire in the summer if possible. And no one else from the previous management trio will remain in office.
Another reason why the medical concept should now be put off is the hospital reform by Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD). The draft reform should come by the summer and will also have an impact on the planning of the Munich clinics. Lauterbach had repeatedly announced that the much-criticized previous billing system of case flat rates would have to be overcome. Because the Munich clinic is of course not the only one in trouble – many German hospitals have been in a kind of permanent crisis mode for years. The health economist Boris Augurzky, who is a member of the government commission for hospital care, is to speak at the supervisory board meeting.
The medical concept is now back on the agenda. The background is probably that the employee representatives criticized the dismissal and called for a discussion about it in a letter to the chairman of the supervisory board, Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD). The suggestions as to how the Munich Clinic should be made fit for the future could at least be roughly outlined, but certainly not discussed conclusively. Informed circles in the city hall expect that the medical concept will not come to the city council before 2024.
Left parliamentary group leader Stefan Jagel, who is also a co-referee in the health department and thus the link between the city council and the administration, thinks it is right that the new management should ultimately develop the medical concept. Above all, it is important to him that the employees of the hospitals are involved in a participatory process, he said. CSU faction deputy Hans Theiss said that the medical concept must be discussed publicly in the city council as soon as possible. “The green-red slowness and secrecy are negligent and indecent towards the people of Munich.”