“Heavy inflation, indexations and rising energy costs due to the war in Ukraine have set off alarm bells in drafting our budget,” explains Yves Breysem, director general of Jessa Hospital in Hasselt in “The morning”. The federal government is providing an additional 80 million euros to mitigate hospital energy bills. However, in exchange for this, hospitals are temporarily not allowed to increase room supplements and, according to the industry, this amount is more than insufficient.
According to a calculation by Zorgnet-Icuro, energy prices for all Belgian hospitals together would rise by around 309 million euros next year. “In UZ Leuven alone, this is estimated at 12 million euros,” says Katrien Kesteloot, Chief Financial Officer of UZ Leuven. “There’s the heating, but also the electricity consumption of all the equipment, which are gigantic gluttons. These are things you can’t save on”.
