Hospital.Help

Berlin On Friday the State Chamber will deal with the hospital reform. The exciting question is whether the amendment will go to the mediation committee. If that happens, the reform could be on the verge of being canceled, as statements from the Union show.

CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt told the newspapers Bavaria Media Groupthe Union in the Bundestag will allow Health Minister Karl Lauterbach’s (SPD) hospital reform to fail if it is sent to the mediation committee by the Federal Council.

Then a new attempt by a new government is needed, said CSU regional group leader Dobrindt. I don’t think it’s realistic to think that, on the basis of a messed up Lauterbach law, we could agree on repair measures that would make the law eligible for approval.

The hospital reform has been passed in the Bundestag, but several states have announced resistance to it. If the Federal Council calls the Mediation Committee, the Bundestag would have to overrule the State Chamber with an absolute majority. After the break of the traffic light coalition, the red-green minority government would not have enough votes.

Dobrindt pointed out that the Union had rejected the hospital law when it was passed in the Bundestag. If it does not find approval in the Federal Council and goes to the mediation committee, in my opinion it will be one of the ruins of the failed ‘traffic light’. The law will not get through the Bundestag again.

The core of the reform is greater medical specialization. Smaller hospitals in particular should offer fewer services in the future and limit themselves to those procedures that they are good at. The number of currently around 1,900 clinic locations would be significantly reduced.

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) remains confident that the reform can come into force in January 2025 as planned. He referred to confidential individual discussions with representatives of the federal states and warned of uncontrolled hospital deaths if the reform does not come.

The chairman of the German Hospital Association, Gerald Ga, recently called on the states to stop Lauterbach’s reform and make changes. The states must send the hospital reform to the mediation committee on November 22nd in order to save it at all, he told the mediaBavaria group. There would be enough time for compromises between the vote of confidence and the new election. To achieve this, the Federal Minister must finally take action after the states.

North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) Health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) recently called for compromises. The health policy spokesman for the Bundestag faction, Tino Sorge (CDU), also expressed his willingness to compromise. The current plans must be improved either in the mediation committee or in the next legislature. The concerns of the countries and clinics would have to be taken more into account so that a compromise can be achieved. It’s not too late for that yet.

The parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia doctors appealed to the Federal Council at the weekend to refer the hospital reform to the mediation committee. It was not about preventing the reform, but about negotiating urgently needed improvements, they said.

The criticism of the North Rhine delegates was particularly aimed at the provisions in the law for retention remuneration. In order to really stop the false incentives created by the system of diagnosis-related flat rates (DRG), not only the services provided would have to be remunerated, but also the different maintenance costs, in particular the patient-related staffing.

The chamber meeting also appealed to the responsible politicians not to lose sight of the needs of doctors in further training. The service groups in hospital planning must be based on the continuing education regulations. This is the only way to prevent bottlenecks from occurring on the way to the specialist.

The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds has warned of a blockage in hospital reform. The present hospital reform is better than the continuation of the decades-long standstill in the hospital sector, said spokesman Florian Lanz. That’s why our appeal to politicians is to ensure that the hospital reform doesn’t fall through the cracks shortly before the end.

Lanz advocated adopting the reform now and improving it after the federal election. Then the quality aspect of care could be emphasized more and the unconstitutional partial financing of the hospital transformation fund from GKV contribution money could be eliminated again. © afp/dpa/kna/may/aerzteblatt.de