Will the German elections, to be held on September 22, herald the introduction of a new Citizens’ Insurance - and the abolition of private healthcare insurance?
Penta Investments is looking to sell Czech primary care chain MediClinic this year. We speak to Investment Director Vaclav Jirku about the Czech healthcare market, the sale of insurer-owned Melnik hospital, challenges in the primary care sector and where Penta hopes to go from here.
Big Polish insurer PZU has used its minority stake in top Polish hospital privatisation chain EMC to prevent majority owner Penta from de-listing the company. Time may be running out for EMC, too. Upcoming local and general elections are likely to return a government dominated by the Law and Justice party, which is hostile to private sector involvement in healthcare delivery.
The functional outsourcing of six large hospitals in Madrid - where contracts were won by Sanitas, Hima and Ribera Salud - has been suspended and referred to the Court of Justice. The Socialist party is claiming that the process by which the contracts were awarded was not transparent.
It is shocking to realise just how uncontrolled most healthcare systems are. You could call them supertankers with medievael navigation. The trouble is that this analogy suggests that there is a pilot at the wheel and that everyone is in a single craft.
The Polish National Health Fund has dropped the shutters on newcomers looking for contracts in 2013, thanks to a projected PLN 1bn (€240m) shortfall. Meanwhile, a domestic insurance giant has built a stake in a leading hospital privatisation group.
Switzerland has yet to unlock the potential of centralised procurement. Given the country’s extraordinarily high per capita healthcare spending - €7,100 in 2011, almost treble that of the UK, at €2,600, and double Germany, at €3,600 – will the country go for the easy win of rationalising purchasing?
Largest Turkish hospital group Acibadem is making a big play for international patients in the Balkans. The company is 75%-owned by Malaysian investment fund Khazanah Nasional and listed operator IHH Healthcare, and 25%-owned by the founding Aydinlar family. Acibadem runs 16 hospitals and nine outpatient clinics in Turkey, and owns 50.7% of Sistina hospital in Macedonia. The group is looking particularly hard at Romania, where 1,000 patients travelled to Acibadem for treatment in 2012. We talk to Anna Herkmen, head of Acibadem’s efforts in East Europe, to find out more.
Telki Privatklinik, the first and only private hospital in the Budapest region, has announced that it will close. The 100-bed hospital has claimed that Hungarian law changes legalising ‘envelope payments’ – informal payments to public-sector doctors for better and faster treatment – have essentially turned the public sector into a subsidised competitor to the private sector. But is the government to blame for Telki’s woes?
Air Liquide Healthcare, Europe’s largest medicalised homecare provider, has made two acquisitions in Poland. The company, part of the listed French Air Liquide group, competes with fellow industrial gas giant Linde in the respiratory homecare space across the continent. Linde has historically been dominant in Poland: is Air Liquide finally making a serious play for East Europe?
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