Over 400 hospitals have launched an official appeal against plans by the health ministry to claw back money they earn from their property, reports Friday’s Financieele Dagblad.

The government is introducing new rules which give the healthcare sector more freedom to build and invest in property development from July next year. But the rules also say that profits must be ploughed back into healthcare and that if that does not happen within a year, the cash must be transferred to the treasury.
According to the healthcare sector this would be unlawful, reports the Financieele Dagblad.
‘The government lays claim on healthcare assets but has no grounds for this. People think that healthcare institutions are semi-public bodies, but that is not the case. They are in essence private organisations,’ a spokesman for the hospital association tells the paper.
The health ministry were unable to react to this claim on Thursday, the paper reports.