High expenses, for example for energy, but also for consumables of all kinds, as well as the foreseeable tariff increases should ensure that the Darmstadt Clinic will probably end 2023 with a deficit of almost 17 million euros.

And that despite the fact that Hesse has increased its financial commitment to the hospitals in the state by 80 million to 380 million euros annually.

The state base case value - i.e. the basic price for diagnosis-related case group services - was also increased by 4.3 percent.

In fact, inflation is currently almost ten percent, said the managing director of Klinikum GmbH, Clemens Maurer, on Tuesday after the supervisory board had approved the current economic plan.

Markus Schug

Correspondent Rhein-Main-Süd.

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This time those responsible are expecting a turnover of 279 million euros;

however, also with the fact that, unlike in the previous year, the conclusion will no longer only be “slightly negative”.

Despite a double-digit deficit expected at the end of the year, the modern hospital with its around 3,350 employees and around 1,000 beds is “in a stable position,” said the chairman of the supervisory board and head of the clinic, André Schellenberg (CDU).

Also find short-term solutions for the hospital emergency

The lights would not go out because Darmstadt, as the provider of the maximum provider that is important for southern Hesse, would transfer 15 million euros extra as liquidity: additional money that could be used, for example, to pay rent, salaries and bills.

"The fact that the municipality has to step into the breach to keep this important public service alive is absurd," said Schellenberg, who is also the city treasurer.

The previous policies of the federal, state and health insurance companies are letting the houses down.

It is not a problem in Darmstadt that the gap between income and expenditure is widening, Maurer assured.

According to an anonymous survey by the Hessen Clinic Association, the municipal hospitals in the state expect that the deficit caused by all of them together will increase to a total of more than 150 million euros this year - and will therefore probably double.

The structural reform in hospital financing announced by Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) and the government commission is the right way.

But the five-year process takes a lot of time, said Maurer: "We also absolutely need short-term solutions in order to be able to maintain the necessary good medical care for the people." Otherwise there is a risk of losing even more specialists or hospitals.

In the opinion of the managing director, the company's own clinic, which received a central new building two years ago and was ranked as a "top hospital" by a magazine in November, is prepared for the upcoming transformation process.

"We need a good and clever interlinking of inpatient and outpatient offers as well as a needs-based shift and concentration according to qualitative criteria." In case of doubt, the structure of a hospital and its performance for the patient is more important than the location of a facility.