Are vibrations an emergency? Spital Affoltern uses it to advertise an emergency department

“Don’t wait in case of emergency.” This is stated on a flyer that the Affoltern Hospital distributed to all households in the Knonau district. In a circulation of 28,000 pieces.

On the flyer, the emergency team smiles at you, beautifully draped on the bed of an MRI machine. As the hospital says on the second page: “The emergency team is supplemented with a radiology and laboratory team if you need an ultrasound, CT, MRI or blood test.”

The hospital advertises. He wants people to come to him in an emergency. That seems suspicious.

After all, hospitals repeatedly complain about overloaded emergency departments. On the one hand, due to the shortage of skilled workers. On the other hand, because people are increasingly going to the emergency room with trivial problems instead of going to the doctor’s office.

This drives up healthcare costs. For everyone.

That is why the Health Committee of the National Council, the SGK-N, ordered the federal government at the beginning of this year to legally investigate whether it is possible to charge a fee for minor cases in hospital emergency departments .

The second page of the flyer, which reads: ‘For all emergencies from A to Z’, seems even stranger in this context. The Affoltern Hospital has also printed this emergency ABC on the last page. It ranges from A for “difficulty breathing” to E for “difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep,” F for “fox tapeworm” and J for “itching” to Z for “shaking.”

Are these really all emergencies? Lukas Rist, CEO of Affoltern Hospital, replies:

He does not want to know that his hospital is artificially increasing healthcare costs with this advertising campaign, because the flyer suggests that you should go to the emergency room even if you have minor problems. Rist says:

This attitude begs the question: is the emergency department of Affoltern Hospital currently hardly visited? “We still have capacity, yes. And a hospital must use its capacity to make it profitable,” says Rist.

Rist makes no secret of the fact that the Affoltern Hospital is under financial pressure. But that’s how it is in many hospitals.

But the fact is: Zurich’s government council decided last year to remove the Affoltern Hospital from the 2023 hospital list. The government has only guaranteed hospital service contracts in the field of acute geriatric and palliative care. The canton wants to refrain from extensive intramural basic care in the future.

The government has canceled service mandates for internal medicine and surgery, effective this year. The canton justifies this decision by saying that the hospital does not make a relevant contribution to healthcare in the canton. Even patients from the region would prefer other hospitals.

CEO Lukas Rist says this decision has made patients uneasy.

With their advertising, his hospital would simply draw attention to an offer. After all, the legislator explicitly wanted competition between hospitals. “Then it makes sense that we advertise our offer,” says Rist.

However, there is also a second reason why only the emergency department is advertised. “The emergency department is the access point for inpatient stays,” says Rist.

The Affoltern Hospital consciously chose the slogan ‘In case of emergency, don’t wait’. According to Rist, the message should be: we are still a full-fledged emergency.

But Affoltern Hospital can’t do everything. The surgery department no longer exists. If a patient requires surgery in the emergency department, Affoltern Hospital must transfer him to another hospital.

The Zurich health department knew nothing about the Affoltern Hospital flyer campaign. When asked, she writes that it generally makes sense for hospitals to inform their patients transparently about the services they offer.

For non-life-threatening health problems in the absence of the GP, a free medical service is available with the doctor’s telephone as a cantonal triage point. This also does not drive up health insurance premiums.

But the Ministry of Health also admits it, that their decision to remove Affoltern from their hospital list could have caused uncertainty among patients. The emergency department of Affoltern Hospital will remain operational until at least 2025. However, what will become of her next remains to be seen.