Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Opinion: merger of clinics legally inadmissible

Rostock (dpa / mv) - In the discussion about a possible merger of the Rostock Südstadt-Klinikum and the university medicine, a new report has put a big question mark behind such considerations.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Opinion: merger of clinics legally inadmissible

Rostock (dpa / mv) - In the discussion about a possible merger of the Rostock Südstadt-Klinikum and the university medicine, a new report has put a big question mark behind such considerations. In the 18-page document, the Hamburg commercial law firm Görg comes to the conclusion that a full merger of the two houses is not permissible under antitrust law, as the Südstadt-Klinikum, which commissioned the report with the city of Rostock, announced on Thursday. The "Ostsee-Zeitung" reported first.

The report was the subject of the clinical committee on Wednesday. There, the director of the Südstadt Clinic, Steffen Vollrath, recalled that around 2010 there had already been ideas in the state of M-V to merge the two Rostock clinics. Antitrust assessments had already been obtained at that time, which ultimately determined that a merger of the two clinics would be inadmissible under antitrust law and would therefore not be approved by the Federal Cartel Office.

The Südstadt Clinic is the largest municipal hospital in MV. A report on the university medical centers in Greifswald and Rostock presented in the summer recommended increased cooperation between the hospitals and the relevant regions, and in the case of Rostock even recommended a merger of the university medical center and the Südstadt clinic. At the time, the city of Rostock did not see this as expedient, since an independent Südstadt clinic was essential for high-quality acute care in the region.

With a view to the planned parent-child center (Elki), the report comes to the conclusion that affiliation of the Elki to the Südstadt-Klinikum would be "absolutely preferable" from a competition law perspective, since this would in all likelihood promote further effective competition .