Lauterbach warns of imminent clinic closures

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach sees the real danger that hospitals will soon go bankrupt as a result of the energy and inflation crisis. "If we don't react quickly and really drastically, there will be closures," said the SPD politician on Sunday in the ARD "Report from Berlin". He is negotiating more state aid this Tuesday with Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP). Until then, however, he could not name "any" magnitude, he said.

The minister expressed skepticism about demands for a special fund specifically for hospitals, analogous to the 100 billion pot for additional military spending. "We cannot introduce a special fund for every area," he said. You have to be careful there. "Everything has to be paid off."

At the beginning of the week, the German Hospital Society called for political action to be taken quickly. Otherwise there is a risk of numerous hospitals being closed due to the economic emergency. A general gas price cap only in March is not adequate help. The financing gap for material costs and energy will add up to around 15 billion euros in 2022 and 2023, it said.

Lauterbach said of these numbers that he knew the bill but could not understand it. "That would mean that the German hospital society would be able to estimate: how expensive gas will be next year, how expensive electricity will be." Honestly, no one knows that now.

However, one can say with certainty “that the hospitals will face a very drastic liquidity problem in the next few months”. That has to be solved.

In Germany there are about 1900 hospitals with about 490,000 beds.