At its council meeting yesterday evening the District of Köthen in Saxony-Anhalt decided by a large majority in favour of selling its district hospital to RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG. The listed hospital group headquartered in the Rhön will acquire the currently district-owned hospital, which is expected to achieve revenues of EUR 24 million this year, as of 1 January 2007. The parties agreed to maintain secrecy regarding the purchase price.

Kreiskrankenhaus Köthen currently has 264 beds. Its offering is comprised of the specialty fields of internal medicine (125 beds), general surgery (100 beds), gynaecology and obstetrics (32 beds) and the affiliated practitioner department urology (7 beds). In 2005, a total of 10,229 patients were treated with a staff of 401.

Against the background of the German health reform, the national introduction of DRGs (diagnosis related groups) for all hospitals, as well as increasing competition, began looking for strong prospective buyers early on by inviting them to submit bids. In the interest of its citizens, the aim is to ensure future-oriented healthcare delivery in the long term. In the end it was owing to our expertise and experience in privatising previously publicly owned hospitals, the future medical concept we submitted and above all our willingness to swiftly resolve the current backlog in investment and medical equipment out of own funds that the decision was taken in favour of the RHÖN-KLINIKUM Group. As part of a general meeting of employees on 15 December 2006, representatives of the Board of Management of RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG will present the future concept to the staff of Kreiskrankenhaus Köthen.