Söder visits the University Hospital in Würzburg and promises investments of over three billion euros

The expansion of the University Hospital Würzburg (UKW) is progressing: A milestone is the award of the general planning contract for the first construction phase with the new construction of the head clinics and the mother-child center, which Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) this Friday during his visit announced on the planned new clinic campus. This means that the winner of the planning competition, the architectural office Hascher Jehle in Berlin, can start with the implementation.

Construction of the new clinic is scheduled to begin in 2025

At the same time, Söder announced that his cabinet would approve the release of the first 822 million euros for the largest building construction project in the history of Lower Franconia before the summer holidays. According to UKW, the first excavators could roll “with continuous planning” in 2025. In any case, during the Prime Minister’s visit on Friday, a few rabbits hopped around happily on the “North Extension Site”.

In total, the Free State wants to spend 1.4 billion euros on the new clinic buildings and the associated infrastructure, including an energy center, in the first construction phase. But that’s not enough, said Söder. You have to “think long-term and big” about the expansion of cutting-edge medicine. He is ready to invest three billion euros in the final expansion at the Würzburg site alone. Promises that Prof. Jens Maschmann, the medical director of the university hospital, was pleased about on Friday in the presence of numerous employees from the medical profession, nursing and administration.

The new clinic building is to be built on an undeveloped site of around ten hectares north-west of the existing centers for operative medicine (ZOM) and internal medicine (ZIM) in the Grombühl district. In the end, the approximately 600 beds of the previous head clinics (eye, ear, nose and throat, neurosurgery), the women’s clinic and the children’s clinic will be relocated. Some of the old buildings date from the 1920s. Overall, the UKW has around 1,400 beds for patient care. The commissioning of the new buildings is planned for the year 2032.

In the presence of several members of the Bundestag and state parliament, both Söder and Maschmann acknowledged the commitment of Barbara Stamm (CSU). The former President of the State Parliament intervened again and again when the clinic expansion was not making any political progress. Most recently, the progress of the project once again depended on the release of funds. After Söder’s visit, these worries seem off the table for the time being. “It’s working now,” said Stamm happily on Friday.

Söder practiced heart surgery with VR glasses

Meanwhile, those responsible for the clinic took the opportunity to present further current examples of innovative medicine at the Würzburg site to the Prime Minister. In the center for heart failure, Söder was allowed to put on so-called VR glasses: They put their wearer, usually medical students and prospective doctors, in a multidimensional, virtual operating room. In this way, they can practice all the movements that are required in the event of a cardiac emergency. You don’t offend Söder if you describe his practical medical skills as “expandable” after this self-experiment. In any case, he was happy to return the VR glasses to the professionals on site.

The “Tele-intensive medicine ambulance” developed in Würzburg, which is intended to promote the networking of hospitals in Bavaria, is in line with the spirit of the state father. With its help, Würzburg intensive care physicians can connect directly to the clinics in the area and advise the doctors there live on diagnosis and therapy. The municipal clinics in Kitzingen and Lohr (Main-Spessart district) were the first to be connected to VHF in this way. The ultimate goal is an intensive care network for all of Bavaria.

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