BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - The chief executive of the German Association of Cities, Helmut Dedy, is calling for financial support for hospitals even before the planned hospital reform. "In view of galloping costs for energy and medical devices, we need an interim solution quickly," Dedy told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND). "Otherwise, many hospitals will no longer exist until the reforms take effect."

He referred to figures from the German Hospital Association, according to which the structural deficit of hospitals will add up to around 15 billion euros in 2023. "This puts hospital care at acute risk and threatens insolvencies," Dedy warned.

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach had recently pointed out that the hospitals would be compensated 100 percent for additional energy costs by the federal government's relief measures. That makes up six billion euros by April 2024, the SPD politician said on Thursday.

On the planned hospital reform, Dedy said it was the right way for the federal and state governments to tackle it together. "Fundamental reforms are overdue." He said the pandemic had shown everyone how important it was to make the hospital structure crisis-proof. This, he said, also includes a solution to sustainably eliminate permanent structural underfunding. "How this is to be achieved is still open. It would help if the states finally did their homework and made up for the deficits in investment funding and set up structured hospital planning."

The hospital landscape in Germany is to be fundamentally restructured according to the will of the federal and state governments. Both sides want to work on a major hospital reform in the coming months, with an initial draft bill to be presented by the summer break. A commission of experts had proposed that hospitals should in future receive less money on a flat-rate basis according to the number of cases treated. Instead, the provision of beds, staff and certain services should be more strongly rewarded. This is intended to take economic pressure off the hospitals. In addition, greater specialization of hospitals is planned./sku/DP/zb