Medicine | Pleasing deficit at the university clinic

16 of 80 professors have already been appointed. The University Medical Center has 2,444 employees for hospital care and so far 245 for research and teaching. Photo: dpa/Patrick Pleul The previously municipal Carl Thiem Hospital in Cottbus was upgraded to the Medical University of Lausitz in the summer of 2024. The first 36 of the 200 students are now scheduled to enroll there for the 2026/27 winter semester.

The Medical University receives money from the federal government, the state and the health insurance companies, and eight million euros in third-party funding has already been promised for research projects this year. This is what the Commercial Director Alexander Hewer and Professor Astrid Kuhlmey said on Wednesday in the Science and Culture Committee of the Brandenburg State Parliament. Kuhlmey was connected via video, Hewer introduced himself to the MPs in person. He has 23 years of experience in healthcare. “I worked at large and well-known houses in Berlin and Stuttgart,” said Hewer. He has been in Cottbus for two years now.

Hewer provided information about the economic situation. He confirmed to the CDU state parliament member and medical professor Michael Schierack that university hospitals in Germany are currently having a hard time - but not just the hospitals, but also municipal hospitals. A rule of thumb is that clinics run a deficit of 15,000 to 20,000 euros per year per bed, which has to be offset by the providers. Last year the university medical center made a loss of 5.9 million euros, this year it is expected to be 6.9 million euros.

»Of course, university medicine is an expensive undertaking, of course.«

For the state of Brandenburg, this also adds up to 160 million euros per year. “University medicine is, of course, an expensive undertaking,” admitted Science Minister Manja Schüle (SPD). But if Brandenburg continued to have no university medicine, it would be significantly more expensive, Schüle is certain. To date, the state has relied primarily on the Berlin Charité and the University of Greifswald to train doctors. A separate state institution of this kind was missing and sorely missed. Cottbus is intended to be an answer to the shortage of doctors in Brandenburg and especially the supply bottlenecks in Lusatia.

SPD MP Katja Poschmann has the feeling that “things are going really well.” The chairman of the board, Eckhard Nagel, reports that Cottbus already has a “fully functioning university hospital in many parts,” because the large city hospital already offered a lot of treatments. For example, kidney transplantation is still missing from maximum care. But it should come.

Nagel knows that Cottbus cannot compete with the Charité or the Heidelberg University Hospital because they conduct extensive basic research. Research in Cottbus focuses on the key areas of supply and digitalization. Cottbus is already involved in studies on new medications. One could compare, says Nagel, with the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, whose university clinic emerged in 1952 from a municipal hospital built in 1914.

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