Hamburg number of hospital beds is increasing

The number of Hamburg hospital beds is expected to rise to a total of 11,800 beds.

11/23/2010

The Hamburg health senator Dietrich Wersich has on Tuesday the „Hospital plan 2015“ which shows that the number of hospital beds in the Hanseatic city should increase by 1.4 percent to 11,800 by 2015. Other focal points include the expansion of geriatric medicine and the help for stroke patients, said Wersich.

Thus, the needs-based expansion of residential care in geriatric care and for stroke patients and the slight increase in the number of beds in the hospitals in Hamburg are the cornerstones of the new hospital plan 2015. The goal of hospital planning, according to the Hamburg Health Senator, ensuring the hospital care for the hamburger Population and the need-based further development of the necessary structures, in accordance with the requirements of the Hospital Financing Act.

Thus, the new hospital plan, with the term from 2011 to 2015, takes into account the actual increase in the utilization of the Hamburg hospitals and focuses specifically on care close to home, explained Health Senator Dietrich Wersich. It is „for the first time in a long time (...) with an increase of 1.4 percent compared to 2011“ again a slight increase in the number of beds „in the Hamburg plank hospitals“ to register, emphasized Wersich. In this way, the Hanseatic city could continue to live up to its metropolitan position and provide the best possible service to numerous patients from the surrounding area. Because a quarter of all patients now come from the surrounding area or from other federal states, according to Wersich. „Hamburg has an important role for the whole of northern Germany“, explained the health senator and the „Capacities have been built up because patients from other federal states are looking for good care in Hamburg“, explained Wersich. However, the health senator dismissed the fear that an investment of more than one billion euros over the past ten years would have created an oversupply in the Hanseatic city. Even though Hamburg is the nationwide leader in terms of investment, investments have always been „on the actual needs of the people in Hamburg and the surrounding area, not on the growth targets of the hospitals“ oriented, emphasized Wersich and added: „We want to create an offer close to home without having to carry out patient management via hospital planning.“

Some measures were explicitly left open in the new hospital plan, explained the Hamburg Health Senator. For example, politicians have had doubts about their wishes to expand their capacities in psychiatry / psychotherapy, psychosomatic medicine and child and adolescent psychiatry and have therefore suspended the decision for the time being. So far, the desired expansion would be justified by case numbers still lying time, so that one has agreed with the parties, „review the development in the coming year and then consider it in a separate interim update of the hospital plan“, explained Wersich ... So the hospital plan 2015 is to be updated in the year 2012 on the basis of the data of the year 2011, in order to be able to carry out possibly necessary adjustments at an early stage. (Fp)