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Germany’s hospitals receive four billion euros in grants; three billion come from the federal government. Money should flow towards emergency care and digitization. The criticism came from the opposition.
By Claudia Plaß, ARD capital studio
Hospitals in Germany are receiving billions in funding to advance digitization and provide better care for emergency patients. The federal government wants to contribute three billion euros for this.
First federal investment in decades
Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn emphasized in the Bundestag that it was the first time in decades that the federal government was investing in clinics. Together with the funds from the federal states that are actually responsible for hospital financing, this would amount to more than four billion euros.
“That will be the largest amount ever invested in hospitals. In 2021, more will be invested in hospitals in Germany than ever before,” Spahn said.
But even if, according to Spahn, more is being invested than ever, and the SPD emphasized that the law does not exclude the federal states from their functions, criticism comes from the opposition.
The Greens and the Left abstained from voting. Necessary structural reforms will not be addressed, according to the Greens.
“We are abstaining because this investment does not fit into a sensible framework, where this money is guaranteed to actually get hospitals to get the digitization boost they need,” says MP Maria Klein-Schmeink.
And we abstain because the concept is not linked to facing the urgent reforms in the hospital sector ”.
In his view, there is much more need to secure supply structures and ensure that where hospitals are needed they can function of good quality and are patient-oriented.
Leftists want to reform hospital funding
Left-wing MP Harald Weinberg also called for a comprehensive reform of hospital funding.
He spoke of a fraudulent label and criticized that financially distressed hospitals in structurally weak regions might not benefit. “It will be attractive for the federal states to stay on the sidelines, so that, above all, private and for-profit hospital operators have access to federal funds. We think that’s completely wrong,” Weinberg said.
The AfD voted against the bill and called for a completely different remuneration system for clinics.
The FDP voted in favor of the law, but criticized the fact that the modernization of the hospitals came with a long delay.
The funds will be used, for example, to support electronic documentation of treatments, and the money will also go towards IT security.
