Hospitals can only survive long-term with public funding

Hospitals can only survive in the long term with public funding Keystone-SDA

Swiss hospitals are expected to accumulate losses amounting to CHF1 billion ($1.13 billion) by 2023. The majority will not achieve the necessary margin to finance investments and are reliant on an implicit state guarantee.

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According to a KPMG study, 68% of the CFOs from 48 hospitals, including psychiatric and rehabilitation clinics, indicated that they assume an implicit state guarantee. The study was first reported by the newspaper “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” (NZZ) on Saturday and is also available to the Keystone-SDA news agency.

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The guideline suggests that earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) should be at 10% to finance investments. This target was only just met by rehabilitation clinics. The “Clarity on Healthcare” study by the consulting firm revealed that the EBITDA figure for other hospitals was only 1.8% in 2023.

Only 14 of the institutions surveyed reported any profit at all. Extrapolating this data to the entire hospital landscape, KPMG estimated a total loss of CHF1 billion.

Adapted from German by DeepL/amva

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