Fresenius says has no plans to shut any hospitals
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German healthcare group Fresenius has no plans to close any of the 110 hospitals it operates, including the 38 recently purchased from Rhoen-Klinikum for 3 billion euros, the company said on Sunday.
Francesco De Meo, head of the Helios hospital division at Fresenius, said there were too many hospitals in Germany and that the "bad" ones needed to be shut down, according to an interview in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
But that doesn't point to any closures by the Fresenius group, a spokesman said.
"There are neither plans to close clinics from the existing Helios network nor newly acquired Rhoen clinics," he said.
De Meo said Fresenius would need to cut a small number of administrative jobs over time after its Rhoen purchase.
Fresenius cemented its position as Germany's largest private-sector hospital operator with the Rhoen purchase, which was approved by German competition authorities in February.
Fresenius began buying hospital chains in 2005 with the purchase of Helios Kliniken GmbH.
Private operators in Germany have also grown by taking over underfunded public-sector hospitals from debt-laden municipalities.
(Reporting by Thomas Atkins; editing by Jason Neely)
