The marketable clinic

 More than a thousand staff and patients have gathered together in front of the Asklepios clinic in Hamburg St. Georg. They are protesting against the private  owners who want to outsource further parts of the clinic with the intention to save 20 Million Euros per year in personnel costs, because the outsourced colleagues are no longer covered by the tariff regulations. Among the demonstrators, we discover Mia Fries. She tells us that since the introduction of DRGs (Diagnosis Related Groups) the number of medical personnel has been reduced and the number of Operations has risen. It is like working in a factory. The patients are hardly treated like human beings, but much rather priced in with their illnesses  as with a commodity. On weekends, as the only doctor on duty with just 2 nurses, she has to look after 43 patients.  At this level of staffing it is not possible to insure even a basic level of patient care. On Mondays she is always happy if none of her patients have died. And the hygienic measures as required by law cannot be adhered to. In times of multiresistant germs that is life threatening for patients. When one goes from one patient to the next only very few disinfect their stethoscopes. That is one way for infections to spread - to say nothing of disinfecting the hands. There is just not enough time, This is a problem which not only the private clinics have. 40,000 people die yearly in Germany as a result of this staff shortage”.

 Asklepios had such a high profit in 2015 – earned on the backs of the personnel and patients – that the owner Bernhard gr. Broermann bought the luxury hotel Atlantic (in Hamburg) as a measure to avoid paying taxes.