Mannheim (dpa / lsw) – The chairman of the university hospital association in Germany, Jens Scholz, is promoting a merger of the hospitals in Heidelberg and Mannheim. “One person alone is not as efficient as several together,” said the CEO of the Schleswig-Holstein University Hospital in the “Mannheimer Morgen” (Wednesday edition). “You can’t buy the world’s best devices for two locations. But if these are bundled, then that’s fine.”
He does not think much of a network of the two clinics as envisaged by Science Minister Theresia Bauer (Greens), said Scholz. “If you leave the structures as they are and rely a bit on cooperation and nice conversations, then unfortunately that doesn’t change anything.” The fact that both board members and both deans wanted to merge into one faculty and one clinic was a “political challenge,” said Scholz. “Basically, state politics only has to sink the penalty. That would be my recommendation anyway.”
He believes that no factual, but rather financial reasons are currently speaking against the merger. “The problem is that Heidelberg is paid for entirely by the state, while Mannheim receives some of the city’s funds,” said Scholz. “You would need the powerful decision of the state to say: Then Mannheim will be 100 percent a university location and will be funded just like the others.”
