Fewer and fewer hospitals treat more and more patients in Germany

Fewer Hospitals Despite Increasing Patient Number
In recent years, criticism of the German health service. This should be boosted by now announced statistics. Accordingly, the number of hospitals in Germany is falling, despite the rising number of patients. However, on average patients do not stay in the clinic that long.

Fewer Hospitals - More Patients
Only a few weeks ago there was criticism of patient advocates because of the nationwide nursing emergency in hospitals. In general, accusations have increased that the German healthcare system is now in a worse position. In addition, more hospitals are threatened with insolvency in this country, as the Hospital Rating Report 2015, which was recently published. The criticism should not be much quieter. Because new statistics now show that the number of hospitals continues to decline, but at the same time the number of patients is increasing.

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Growing number of patients due to demographic change
According to a report by the dpa news agency, the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden announced on Wednesday that there were 1,980 clinics last year, 16 less than in 2013. 20 years ago - in 1994 - there were 2,337 hospitals nationwide. In 2014, around 19.1 million patients were hospitalized throughout the country. That was 1.9 percent more than in 2013 and 3.6 million more than in 1994. It does not count the persons, but so-called treatment cases. The German Foundation for Patients' Protection attributes the growing number of patients to demographic change: "There are more and more old people and thus always the same," said Foundation Board member Eugen Brysch to the German Press Agency.

More full staff positions in the clinics
According to the data, there were a total of around 875,900 full-time positions in the clinics last year. Almost 151,000 of them belong to the medical service - an increase of 2.5 percent over the previous year. 725,200 belonged to the non-medical service - an increase of 3.1 percent compared to the previous year. Of these, 318,800 were in nursing care (plus 0.8 percent). It is also positive that the number of beds has barely changed year-on-year. It amounted to 500,700 nationwide last year. Two decades ago, there were about 618,000 hospital beds across the country.

Patients are shorter in the clinic
At that time, the patients stayed in the hospital for an average of 12 days, compared to just 7.4 days in 2014. The occupancy of the beds declined at the same time. For example, beds were 82.5 percent occupied in 1994, compared to just 77.4 percent last year. Almost every second bed (48 percent) is in a hospital of a public institution, for example a municipality. At 35 percent, about every third bed is in a house of independent institutions such as churches or charities. The remaining 18 percent of the beds are in private clinics. Compared to the previous year, the shares have changed only insignificantly. (Ad)