Hospital demo on Saturday in Wertingen: protest several thousand people
On Saturday afternoon, around 2000 people in Wertingen demonstrated for the local hospital with drums and trill pipes. The police speak of this number after the organizers previously assumed around 6,000 participants. « We are here, we are loud because you steal the clinic. » With this reputation, organizer Maria Knab led the long protest with the demonstrators from the marketplace to high school. Together they made them aware of what annoyed them: that the Dillingen-Wertingen district clinics for the planned insolvency came. And that massive changes are accompanied by this.
Firefighters and police cars could be seen everywhere in the city center. Organizer Knab asked in advance to use the urban parking spaces. Two trucks blocked the entrance to the Wertinger marketplace to secure the protest. The head of the Wertingen police station, Josef Mayer, was deployed with his colleagues and supporters from Dillingen and Augsburg.
Hospital demo in Wertingen today: the protest train is fighting for this
The speeches followed in front of the high school. The mood was heated. District Administrator Markus Müller was booed because he “the death bell for the Wertinger Hospital”, as Hermann Buhl, former third chairman of the hospital support association, said in his speech. He and his wife promised the audience to do everything to receive the facility and emergency room. Great jubilation followed. There were further speeches from Ottilie Probst as a former works council and Werner Hafner as chairman of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), local association Dillingen. Leon Florian, as district spokesman for the left and assistant, Georg Steinmetz also spoke a few words. District Administrator Markus Müller also commented. Knab, nurse and main organizer of the event, moderated. In advance, she asked not only the workforce, but also the population to demonstrate together.
What annoys the demonstrators is, among other things, that the emergency room should be eliminated in Wertingen. And there will be dismissals. At the same time, the communication on the part of the management is insufficient, as Maria Knab said in the run -up to the campaign. You have never seen so many horrified faces As at the employee meeting, in which the bankruptcy proceedings were informed. The step became necessary because the district of Dillingen can no longer manage the district clinics financially. In this year’s budget, the district will have to set 18 million euros for deficit compensation. And then there are debts of around 26 million euros from the past 20 years.
