Public hospitals in financial crisis: the State is mobilizing six billion over ten years to revive investment

Faced with persistent inflation in construction costs, rising interest rates, and an overall deficit estimated at €2,5 billion for 2025, French public hospitals will receive an additional €6 billion in funding by 2036. Health Minister Stéphanie Rist officially announced this new budget allocation on Tuesday at the Santexpo trade show, organized by the French Federation of Public Hospitals. The funding is intended to support renovation, modernization, and construction projects in the regions. Instructions will be sent to the Regional Health Agencies to ensure the allocation of these funds.

This six billion euro investment is not entirely unprecedented: it essentially involves remobilizing funds from the former "Hospital 2007" and "Hospital 2012" plans, which were expiring and would have disappeared without this decision. Combined with the 16 billion euros already allocated to hospitals as part of the Ségur de la Santé (Health Investment Plan) launched in 2021, the total public effort will reach 22 billion euros over the period 2021-2036. The French Hospital Federation (FHF), which had been calling for this funding security for several years, welcomed it as "very good news."

Trade-offs in terms of efficiency and cooperation

However, this funding will not be granted without conditions. Eligible projects must be part of a resource-sharing approach within hospital groups and demonstrate their financial sustainability. The minister intends to ensure that "every euro of public money is used wisely," as she put it, moving away from an open-access policy.

Beyond real estate investment, Stéphanie Rist outlined a more profound transformation of the hospital model, encouraging institutions to develop outpatient care, home hospitalization, and less expensive forms of non-medicalized accommodation. She also announced a mission entrusted to the IGAS (General Inspectorate of Social Affairs) to analyze the deteriorating financial situation of private clinics, and expressed her desire for public hospitals to become more integrated with the private sector and clinics, based on a logic of complementary activities.