This is remarkable, given that the FHML Council has been meeting behind closed doors with board members since the integration was announced in 2023. Yet it appears that not everyone is convinced of the need to merge the hospital with the entire university under a new executive council.
Closer cooperation is also possible in other ways, argued Jonathan van Tilburg, council member for academic staff: “We‘re all in the same small area, aren’t we? An extra layer of administration only creates noise and confusion. Why is there no mention of ‘we have to do this thing, otherwise that thing will happen’?” And the student representatives asked: “Why not just merge Medicine with the hospital, as has been done elsewhere?”
"Non acceptable"
Because, hospital director Helen Mertens argued, there is currently no other option. She referred to Rotterdam as an example. After merging with the academic hospital, the Faculty of Medicine there became too distant from the rest of Erasmus University. Therefore, merging only the FHML with the hospital “was not acceptable to UM”. In addition, the new ‘merger product’ would be better able to respond to threats such as healthcare cutbacks, said UM President Rianne Letschert. A joint board would also facilitate “cross-domain collaboration” – she did not elaborate on what that would look like in practice.
But why do it this way? Isn’t there already cooperation? According to Letschert, the current situation is vulnerable. “It should not depend on whether, as board members, you happen to work well together and seek each other out, as is currently the case. We can’t afford that.”
"Earmarked funds"
What about the balance of power? Will education and research be overshadowed by healthcare, for example, in crisis situations? No, says Mertens, because “earmarked funds” cannot be moved around. But what if there are five “white coats” on the new Executive Council, people who are more affiliated with the hospital than the university? Letschert points out that decisions by this council must be unanimous, and that the rector represents the votes of the six deans. “The four other board members would have to be very brave to simply ignore that.”
The council was also uncomfortable with the dual role that the head of MUMC+ will have according to the plans. They will be accountable to the executive council of which they are a member. Couldn’t that have been done differently, asked council chair Iwan de Jong. Again, Mertens said: not at this time. If decisions about the hospital are to be made by that board, she believes there must be someone there “with their finger on the pulse”.
And what about the entire integration, asked Martina Parić, council member for academic staff. “What if the conclusion is that this really doesn’t work?” ‘Unbundling’ is possible, Mertens responded, because the hospital and university remain formally separate legal entities. “But it is complicated.”
"Insufficiently thought trough"
The council had concerns about its own position within the new MUMC+. The documents make no mention of this, noted Patrick van Gorp (council member for support staff). “Shouldn’t that be arranged in advance instead of seeing how it goes?” Letschert and Mertens insisted that the council’s powers would not change, but the latter had to admit: “We haven’t thought through the employee participation aspect sufficiently. It would have been useful to have worked out exactly what that would look like. But that’s phase 2.”
The council members were satisfied with this, often also letting the board members get away with other fairly general answers on Tuesday. Will there actually be less bureaucracy in the future? “After all, both institutions will remain separate legal entities with their own budgets and IT systems,” the council said. UM Vice-President Jan-Tjitte Meindersma did not give a concrete answer when he said that “a single board will also make business operations easier”.
When asked, several faculty council members said they were only partly convinced by the answers they got. The University Council will vote on the plans on 25 February at the earliest. It is not yet known when the FHML Council itself will vote.
Peter Doorakkers and Dennis Vaendel