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Despite Covid, hospital accounts in balance in 2020

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Public hospitals rebalanced budgets in 2020, for the first time since 2012, thanks to the financing guarantee put in place at the start of the Covid-19 health crisis, the Ministry of Health said on Tuesday.

Unexpected collateral effect of the epidemic, the financial health of hospitals has improved: their accumulated deficit went from 568 million euros in 2019 to only 2 million in 2020, out of a total budget of 88.5 billion, indicates the Department of Statistics (Drees) in its annual summary of health facilities.

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A paradoxical “quasi-equilibrium”, because the sector was then trapped in a vice between, on the one hand, an “unprecedented drop” in activity due to a massive “deprogramming” and, on the other, a jump in spending linked to the additional cost of Covid, as well as the salary increases of the Ségur de la santé.

But these limitations were swept away by the financing guarantee launched in March 2020, which translated into a “sharp increase” in the credits paid by Health Insurance. It is therefore “Security” that has erased the slate of hospitals, at the cost, however, of a record deficit this year (-38,700 million).

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30,000 million euros of debt

However, public establishments are not out of the woods. Firstly, because 40% were still in deficit in 2020, starting with Paris Hospitals (AP-HP), which ended the year with a loss of 246 million.

Then because the sector is still weighed down by a debt of 30,000 million euros, with more than three out of ten hospitals (31%) still in a situation of over-indebtedness. And finally, because their investments have further decreased, particularly in real estate, increasing the “obsolescence rate” of buildings and equipment.

The contrast remains striking with private clinics, whose cumulative profits are estimated at 533 million euros in 2020, for revenues of 17.6 billion, that is, a net margin of 3%, at the height of the “historically high levels observed in 2014 to 2016”.

Although a quarter of the establishments were loss-making at the time, the situation of the lucrative sector has improved considerably, with investments on the rise and a debt ratio at its lowest level for fifteen years.

Author: CO with AFP
Source: BFM TV

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