A hospital with 2,000 patients in Spijkenisse, south-west of Rotterdam, has gone bankrupt because it cannot pay its staff wages.

The Ruwaard van Putten hospital has been in financial trouble for some time and was declared bankrupt on Monday.

The hospital hit the headlines last November because of the ‘inexplicably high’ death rate at its cardiology unit and was put under special supervision by health ministry inspectors. Earlier this year 155 of the workforce of 1,100 were sacked.

Local care

Patients will not be affected by the bankruptcy. The hospital is being taken over immediately by three other hospitals in the Rotterdam area and has been renamed Spijkenisse Medisch Centrum.

According to the Volkskrant, they plan to turn it into a ‘Monday to Friday’ hospital, guaranteeing that care will remain in the locality.

Hospitals in the Netherlands are technically state-owned but operate as independent entities. The paper says the bankruptcy is unique in recent history in the Netherlands.