Given the financial difficulties faced by hospitals, the government announced on Friday, February 16, a “Extraordinary help” 500 million euros to support public and private healthcare facilities. This envelope will be distributed accordingly by the regional health authorities “Activity criteria”said Minister Delegate responsible for Health Frédéric Valletoux, “To support those whose financial situation is deteriorating”. The government also plans to return an amount of 470 million unused loans, which were included in the spending of the 2023 social security budget, to public and private non-profit institutions.

The French Hospital Association expressed its disappointment at the fact that these arbitrations remained in place “very far from the needs”. “The government is therefore advocating an unprecedented increase in the deficit of public hospitals, which will be around 2 to 3 billion in 2023.”worries the public hospital lobby, which is demanding “Away from the policy of exceptional patches to finally set a clear course.”

Bed fasteners

The announcement came after numerous warnings from public and private hospital associations, which estimated the amount needed to offset inflation in 2023 at 1.5 billion euros. University hospitals (CHU), for their part, put their deficit in 2023 at 1.2 billion euros, three times more than in 2022. “Self-financing capacity and thus investment capacity fell by 86%”, they warned on January 29th. A situation that is due to several external factors, above all inflation, but also to a partial compensation of the Ségur de la santé salary increase measures and to bed closures that did not allow a return to the level of pre-crisis activity. which leads to a decline in sales.