The high energy costs not only depress consumers and companies, according to the Greens, numerous hospitals also fear for their existence. Therefore, the federal government must take immediate measures and take over the high electricity and heating prices.
According to a report, the Greens are demanding rapid help for hospitals from the federal and state governments because of rising energy costs and high inflation. “Without a comprehensive package of measures, health care facilities in all parts of the country are threatened with insolvency due to a lack of liquidity,” reported the “Spiegel”, citing a paper on measures by the Greens in the Bundestag.
In it, specialist politicians around health policy spokesman Janosch Dahmen called for immediate energy cost compensation by the federal government. Inpatient care and health care facilities are to be reimbursed for increases in energy costs for an initial period of six months. In addition, the Greens’ crisis plan provides for a short-term inflation cost brake: the federal and state governments should each absorb half of cost increases, for example for medical products or food, retrospectively from July 2022 for an initial period of nine months.
Furthermore, the health politicians of the Greens insist on rapid structural reforms in the hospital landscape and on the establishment of a climate protection fund for the health care system. “On average, a hospital bed already consumes as much energy as a single-family house,” it says. The aim must therefore be “to accelerate the path to a climate-neutral healthcare system and to quickly reduce the dependence of healthcare facilities on fossil fuels”.
According to the German Hospital Society, around 40 percent of hospitals currently see their economic situation in such jeopardy that there is a risk of insolvency. Saxony-Anhalt’s Health Minister Petra Grimm-Benne, currently Chairwoman of the Health Ministers’ Conference of the federal states, is also in favor of federal aid: “The hospitals are in a difficult, even precarious situation,” the SPD politician told the “Spiegel”. The rising energy costs would hit the hospitals, which are already heavily burdened by the pandemic management, hard again. “That’s why I support the urgent demands for federal aid,” said Grimm-Benne.
The hospital in Spremberg, Brandenburg, filed for bankruptcy last week. The Verdi trade union described this as an emergency signal “that the medical care structures for the population in rural areas are at their limit”.
