Health: Lauterbach: hospital reform is “better medicine”

Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach has defended the controversial hospital reform and called it “better medicine”. “We want a bit more centralization so that the special treatments are done where they are best done. Then we could also be better with the result. The patients benefit from that,” said the SPD politician today in the ARD “Morgenmagazin”. .

In addition, one wants to take out the economic pressure so that hospitals do not have to do one case after the other. Lauterbach wants to present the first key points of the planned reform by the summer.

The plans of the traffic light coalition in Berlin aim to classify the grown clinic network into three care levels and to finance them accordingly – from basic care close to home to a second level with other offers up to maximum care providers such as university clinics.

DKB warns of short-term insolvencies

The German Hospital Society (DKG) warned of the short-term insolvency of clinics. “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 the editorial network Germany (RND / Monday). In the afternoon, a DKG hospital summit on the reform will take place, in which Lauterbach also wants to take part.

Criticism also came from the federal states. Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein want to have the planned hospital reform checked for its constitutionality. The federal states want to know whether the reform that Lauterbach is aiming for extends too far into the competence of the federal states. Lauterbach assured that he wants to push through the reform with the federal states. “That will be solved in cooperation,” emphasized the minister.