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HEALTH

Cash-strapped hospitals ‘took on 13,600 new staff’

German hospitals have employed more than 13,000 additional nurses and carers over the last few years, despite continued complaints about underfunding, a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper says.

Cash-strapped hospitals 'took on 13,600 new staff'
Photo: DPA

A special programme of the last government enabled 13,600 additional people to be employed in hospitals, a new study by the statutory health insurers suggests – yet despite this success the researchers have warned against repeating the programme.

The insurers’ association (GKV-Spitzenverband) said the governmental injection of €1.1 billion was crucial in the increase of care personnel in German hospitals between 2009 and 2011.

Around 70 percent of all hospitals signed up for the special funding and used it to employ more staff, while around 4,400 jobs were cut in other hospitals, according to figures from the Statistics Office.

The German Association of Hospitals reported that around 40 percent of hospitals made a financial loss in 2012, the Süddeutsche Zeitung said.

Increases in staff-associated costs was a major cause for concern, with wages rising by 18.6 percent since 2006 – compared with a 8.7 percent rise in prices hospitals charged over the same period. Many managers reacted to this by cutting nurse and carer jobs, something which was seemingly successfully countered by the job creation programme.

Yet despite this, the Süddeutsche Zeitung said that the GKV-Spitzenverband was not in favour of the programme being revived, saying it was papering over cracks by helping hospitals which were not managing their budgets well – and not helping those which were employing enough care personnel.

The Local/hc

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HEALTH

Lengthy waiting times at Danish hospitals not going away yet: minister

Danish Minister for the Interior and Health Sophie Løhde has warned that, despite increasing activity at hospitals, it will be some time before current waiting lists are reduced.

Lengthy waiting times at Danish hospitals not going away yet: minister

The message comes as Løhde was set to meet with officials from regional health authorities on Wednesday to discuss the progress of an acute plan for the Danish health system, launched at the end of last year in an effort to reduce a backlog of waiting times which built up during the coronavirus crisis.

An agreement with regional health authorities on an “acute” spending plan to address the most serious challenges faced by the health services agreed in February, providing 2 billion kroner by the end of 2024.

READ ALSO: What exactly is wrong with the Danish health system?

The national organisation for the health authorities, Danske Regioner, said to newspaper Jyllands-Posten earlier this week that progress on clearing the waiting lists was ahead of schedule.

Some 245,300 operations were completed in the first quarter of this year, 10 percent more than in the same period in 2022 and over the agreed number.

Løhde said that the figures show measures from the acute plan are “beginning to work”.

“It’s positive but even though it suggests that the trend is going the right way, we’re far from our goal and it’s important to keep it up so that we get there,” she said.

“I certainly won’t be satisfied until waiting times are brought down,” she said.

“As long as we are in the process of doing postponed operations, we will unfortunately continue to see a further increase [in waiting times],” Løhde said.

“That’s why it’s crucial that we retain a high activity this year and in 2024,” she added.

Although the government set aside 2 billion kroner in total for the plan, the regional authorities expect the portion of that to be spent in 2023 to run out by the end of the summer. They have therefore asked for some of the 2024 spending to be brought forward.

Løhde is so far reluctant to meet that request according to Jyllands-Posten.

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