“Extreme cost impact”: There are people in our hospitals who don’t belong there

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There are people in Swiss hospitals who don’t belong there. Anyone who is dependent on an inpatient stay therefore has to wait in some places. No bed, no treatment.

At Nyon VD Hospital alone, every seventh bed was occupied by a patient not requiring hospital care by 2022. With 140 places, that means an average of 18 to 20 beds that are blocked. How could it come to this?

The cantons are to blame

First of all, the people who block hospital beds do so involuntarily. They have to wait for a referral to a rehabilitation clinic or an old people’s and nursing home because space is also tight there.

The cantons are to blame for this, says Senesuisse, the association of economically independent elderly and care institutions. Director Christian Streit (43) denounces: “Most cantons plan too few care places in homes because they are afraid of extra costs.”

The need would be enormous, according to a 2022 Swiss Health Observatory (Obsan) report. According to these figures, an additional 683 to 921 nursing homes will be needed by 2040 to cope with the onslaught of baby boomers.

Spitex is more expensive

The situation in French-speaking Switzerland is particularly precarious. Switzerland’s francophone cantons have neglected to build new nursing homes and have instead relied on Spitex’s nursing service. For those affected, this has the advantage that they can stay at home and do not have to move.

But for Christian Streit from Senesuisse, these cantons are mainly about money: “The cantons of western Switzerland assume that Spitex is cheaper because no new care facilities need to be built for it.” A study commissioned by Spitex Switzerland shows the opposite: a stay in a retirement home can be cheaper if you need more than one hour of care per day.

Doctors have to postpone interventions

The space problem in homes has now moved to hospitals. “There are extreme cost consequences,” says Streit and calculates: “A day in a retirement home costs 200 to 300 francs, while in the hospital it is between 1,000 and 3,000 francs – about ten times as much. In addition, there is a loss of income because doctors have to postpone planned procedures. »

How big the problem is differs from canton to canton. The cantons themselves decide how they plan hospitals and homes. Some cantons are tackling the domestic problem, while others are following an austerity course and looking the other way. Senesuisse reports that there is a shortage of nursing home places in the cantons of Baselland, Freiburg, Neuchâtel, Vaud and Wallis.

Most patients have to wait

In Zurich, on the other hand, transfers to nursing homes are less difficult. However, it is difficult to find suitable places in rehabilitation clinics there. The University Hospital Zurich (USZ) writes that there are delays in two thirds of patients. On average, patients are in bed three days longer than originally planned.

But: “We cannot estimate how strongly this is related to the available places in the rehabilitation clinics,” says the USZ. Because patients who have to stay longer due to a medical background are also transferred later. It is therefore unclear how large the proportion of patients is that remains in the rehabilitation center for too long due to a lack of space.

Hospital association has no overview

There is also no overview in the whole of Switzerland of how many hospital beds are blocked by so-called waiting patients, that is, by people who can actually be transferred. “There is no national monitoring,” writes the hospital association H+.

On the other hand, it is clear that the situation will worsen – keyword baby boomers, that is, the baby boomers who are now reaching retirement age. Some cantons have now started construction and expansion projects for nursing homes. But it takes an average of eight to ten years before it can be used.

According to the director of Senesuisse, Mr. Streit, the cantons should have started construction earlier. “But unfortunately the nursing homes could not resist the power of the cantons.” In the end, everyone would suffer, especially those in need of care and their relatives.

Source:Blick