Two Dutch hospitals owned by a private medical group have applied for court protection from creditors and are on the verge of bankruptcy.

‘A bankruptcy may be unavoidable,’ the MC Groep said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon. ‘All has been done’ to ensure a quality and financially responsible future but that the financing has not panned out, the statement said.

Patients at the MC IJsselmeer hospital, with branches in Lelystad, Emmelord and Dronten, and at the MC Slotervaart in Amsterdam will continue to receive ‘adequate’ care, the statement said.

Health insurance group Zilveren Kruis has also stepped into to assure people with appointments that these will go ahead. ‘We have a duty of care,’ chairwoman Georgette Fijneman told broadcaster NOS. ‘We feel responsible for making sure that… everyone gets the care they need.’

The company was known to be in financial difficulty and had asked health insurance companies at the beginning of this month to extend an emergency line of credit. Zilveren Kruis, an important source of finance for the hospitals because it is the biggest health insurance group in the region, refused to comply, as did most of the others.

The hospital group blames the financial problems on ‘the high cost of hiring in staff in a situation of major labour shortages’.

MC Groep is owned by former doctor Loek Winter and has bought up several financially troubled hospitals and clinics over the past few years. Some 2,500 jobs are at stake at the two hospital groups now in financial trouble.