On Tuesday, the German Hospital Association (DKG) warned that more and more hospitals will no longer be able to bear the financial burden and will slide into insolvency next year mainly due to the energy crisis and high inflation.
"A wave of insolvencies is rolling toward our hospitals in 2023 that can hardly be stopped," Gerald Gass, the group’s chairperson, told local media, adding that the government’s financial aid plan has been insufficient.
The damage to medical care will be visible in many regions in 2023, Gass said, referring to the current hospital barometer of the German Hospital Institute (DKI), an annual representative survey of general hospitals in Germany.
According to the annual survey, 59% of the hospitals expect massive financial losses this year, and they are already operating on negative margins. In 2021, this share was 43%.
Meanwhile, the proportion of hospitals with a positive annual result will more than halve, from 44% to an expected 20%, according to the DKI survey. Currently, only 21% of hospitals hope for a balanced result for the 2022 financial year.
For 2023, 56% expect a further deterioration of the economic situation. Only 17% of hospitals expect an improvement and 27% foresee no change when compared to the situation right now.
Gass sees the financial aid planned by the federal government to compensate for energy price increases as helpful. However, the assistance appears non-sufficient to tackle inflation-related general cost increases.
In a statement given to news outlet RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND), Bavaria's Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said that "medicine has priority over the economy, but this remains an empty promise."
"I have been warning for weeks that the support promised so far by the federal government is not enough to absorb, for example, the massive increase in material costs for hospitals."
According to the survey, the staffing situation in hospitals, especially nursing, continues to be a cause for concern.
At midyear 2022, almost 90% of hospitals had problems filling vacant nursing positions in the general wards. Compared to the previous year, the number of vacant nursing positions in the general controls rose from 14,400 to 20,600.
According to German Hospital Federation estimates, hospitals need around 15 billion euros ($16 billion) in financial support to overcome the current crisis.