Health: Lauterbach promotes clinic reform

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) considers fears of hospital deaths as a result of the planned hospital reform to be unfounded. At the moment, no one can say that clinics will disappear as a result of the reform, he said after a conference with the East German state leaders on Friday in Berlin: “I can only say that clinics will disappear if we don’t implement the reform.” It is intended to maintain and strengthen clinic locations. “There are no closure plans.”

According to Lauterbach, the reform will rather lead to reliable financing of the hospitals. There will be more outpatient treatments in the future. The hospital planning and securing remain with the federal states. All the reforms in the federal states would go hand in hand with the federal reform. In the future, quality criteria will be uniform nationwide. “It is a central concern of the new federal states that there is the same quality everywhere. The people there have a right to that.”

Lauterbach made it clear that the reform could also give states and municipalities in the east in particular the opportunity to provide outpatient care, which is otherwise difficult to maintain, in part through hospitals. The aims of the reform are to improve medical quality and the services of general interest in the clinics. For this purpose, the remuneration system is to be changed via flat rates for treatment cases. In order not to be dependent on more and more cases, clinics should be rewarded with a larger share simply for providing services. The focus is also on classifying the clinic network into three levels of care and financing them accordingly – from basic care close to home to a second level with other offers up to maximum care providers such as university clinics.

Chairman criticizes

Future health care was a central topic at the East Prime Ministers’ Conference chaired by Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU). He had criticized the reform in the previously conceived form beforehand. At the current stage, this cannot be approved, he confirmed after the meeting. However, Kretschmer also considers a reform to be indispensable. “We agree that reform is needed,” he said right at the beginning of his statement. However, this can only be done in accordance with the countries that are responsible for hospital planning.

He presented the reform proposals as they are currently being discussed in the federal-state working group, said Lauterbach. There is still no common proposal, so there is nothing to correct. Calculations will be made for the individual federal states. At the present time, the effects on the level of the federal states are not yet easy to assess. He agrees with Kretschmer that they will eventually come together.

Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) attested to the great achievements of the hospitals. “Even though this good work is being done in our hospitals, our hospital system is sick. It’s sick because too much of the economy, of maximizing profits, plays a role instead of the patient and the staff.” The staff suffer from the fact that there is economic pressure and the focus is less on the patient. You have to get away from the case flat rates, which would have ensured economization.

Schwesig and Kretschmer also addressed medical care in rural areas. Increasing specialization in hospitals should not mean that patients end up having to drive 50 or 60 kilometers to see a specialist.