Merger date MCL and Tjongerschans moved to Jan. 1, 2025

Medisch Centrum Leeuwarden (MCL) and hospital Tjongerschans have decided to move the planned legal merger, originally scheduled for January 1, 2024, to January 1, 2025. The merger process between MCL and Tjongerschans is an ambitious and at the same time complex one. Sufficient time and space is needed to complete all the steps carefully. The hospitals have found that the previously agreed timelines for the merger are too ambitious, which is why they are now working toward January 1, 2025.

The reason why MCL and Tjongerschans are taking the step to merge has to do with a number of major challenges. There is a rapidly increasing demand for care because there are more elderly people. At the same time, treatment options are increasing due to technological developments and - often - expensive medications. All this leads to rapidly rising healthcare costs. In addition, there are fewer people to do the work, so there is already a growing shortage of employees. This puts great pressure on healthcare. By merging, both hospitals can better utilize available capacity to deliver care and jointly invest in new technology. Both organizations are already part of the same concern, Zorgpartners Friesland, which makes a merger a logical step.

In mid-June 2023, the directors of the four Frisian hospitals MCL, Tjongerschans, Antonius and Nij Smellinghe, together with health insurers De Friesland, Zilveren Kruis and cooperative VGZ presented the preferred scenario of three hospitals instead of four. That scenario describes future care in Friesland with a top clinical hospital in Leeuwarden, Nij Smellinghe in Drachten and a new hospital to be built in Joure into which the hospital locations of Antonius and Tjongerschans will then merge. This is a plan for the longer term and will be further investigated for feasibility in the coming period. Its realization will certainly take until 2030 and beyond. The major challenges that hospital care already faces mean that Tjongerschans and MCL want to merge first.