The conference of district councils currently in session is appealing to federal and state politicians to support the state's hospitals. The President of the Landkreistag, District Administrator Joachim Walter (Tübingen), says: "The districts of Baden-Württemberg have repeatedly drawn attention to the precarious situation of hospitals in the state in recent times. The dramatic nature of the situation has now reached a new level. The corona pandemic has already led to enormous additional burdens in all hospitals in the state. As a result of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the hospital system is now also facing rapidly rising material costs. Without substantial compensation for inflation in the form of a retroactive invoice surcharge, there is therefore a real risk that the cost pressure will cause lasting damage to the medical and nursing performance of hospitals and even raise the question of their economic viability.
On top of all this, patients are still very reluctant to postpone treatment. As a result, the additional expenditure caused by the pandemic is offset by lower income. Against this backdrop, the districts of Baden-Württemberg are appealing to federal policymakers to adopt regulations as quickly as possible to compensate for reduced COVID revenues and additional COVID expenses. The corona rescue packages must reliably cover the pandemic risks, because otherwise new highs in the deficit ratios of Baden-Württemberg's hospitals are inevitable.
And as if all this were not enough, the pandemic has also exacerbated the shortage of specialists. A whole package of measures is needed here. In addition to the urgently needed reduction of excessive bureaucracy, these include in particular the accelerated recognition of foreign skilled and unskilled workers, a nationwide training fund to finance one-year assistant training, a legal moratorium on compulsory vaccination in specific institutions and the provision of nursing training in rehabilitation and integration assistance facilities, as already provided for in the coalition agreement at federal level.
But we are also looking towards the state. We absolutely share the assessment of the Ministry of Social Affairs that investment funding for hospitals in the state must be increased by 200 million euros in each of the next two years. We recognize that the state does more than most other federal states in terms of hospital investment funding. In view of an expert-confirmed funding requirement of 750 million euros per year, an increase of 200 million euros per year would have been urgently required even without the inflation crisis. The district administrators of Baden-Württemberg are therefore urgently requesting that the state clearly prioritize investment funding for hospitals in the 2023/2024 double budget."
