Response of the PdA Aargau to two recent articles in the Aargauer Zeitung from June 27, 2026
The announced closure of the Menziken acute care hospital is more than just a regional business decision. It demonstrates what happens when healthcare is organized according to business principles. What means security for an entire region appears as a problem in the balance sheet. What means proximity for patients appears as insufficient occupancy in the location strategy. What means daily work, responsibility, and expertise for employees ultimately appears as a position to be eliminated.
The Menziken hospital advertised with the slogan “We live nearby.” This very proximity is now set to disappear. A general practitioner’s office, an outpatient clinic, an ambulance service, and a walk-in clinic operating during the day can be important. But they don’t replace an acute care hospital. They don’t replace 24/7 inpatient care. They don’t replace the trust a region has that, in an emergency, more is available than just a referral to another center.
The Menziken case should not be seen merely as the misjudgment of a single board member. It reflects a deeper logic. In today’s healthcare system, care is not simply planned according to societal needs. It is shaped by diagnosis-related groups (DRGs), occupancy rates, competition between locations, cost pressures, and operational profitability. A hospital doesn’t necessarily have to generate profit for a private shareholder to function according to capitalist logic. It is enough that it is forced to behave like a business.
This is precisely the Marxist core of the matter. The use value of a hospital lies in its availability when people need it: at night, on weekends, in case of complications, emergencies, and uncertainties. Its economic value, however, is measured by whether it generates enough billable cases, sufficient occupancy, and sufficient revenue. What is socially necessary can appear as a loss in the accounting of an individual institution.
Therefore, the simple juxtaposition of “private” and “public” falls short. It would be an illusion to believe that everything would be better as soon as an organization is formally publicly owned. Public or semi-public hospitals can be run according to the same logic: with targets, austerity programs, competitive pressure, outsourcing, wage cuts, and site closures. The state is not outside of these conditions; it actively shapes them.
Even where social democratic or green forces are part of the governing or administrative bodies, this logic doesn’t automatically disappear. If they adopt the language of “objective constraints,” if they treat healthcare provision as a cost issue, and if they prioritize business metrics over the needs of the population and staff, they ultimately manage the same system. Then healthcare is not planned democratically, but rationalized along capitalist lines.
Menziken, therefore, doesn’t simply demonstrate the failure of a single hospital. Menziken demonstrates the failure of a health policy that forces public responsibilities into a corporate form. The responsibility lies with society, the financing is political, and the consequences affect employees and the population. But decisions are made according to a logic that ultimately asks: Is this location still profitable?
This is particularly brutal in the case of staff. 149 out of 303 employees are to lose their jobs, including trainees and students. These people did not drive the hospital into the red. They kept it running. They worked shifts, cared for patients, supported their families, handled emergencies, cooked, cleaned, organized, provided care, documented, and trained others. Those now dismantling their jobs cannot speak of “restructuring” as if it were a purely technical structural issue. This is about career paths, expertise, training, and life plans.
The Aargau branch of the Party of Labour (PdA) stands with the employees, apprentices, students, and residents of the Wynental region. We support the demand for a genuine consultation process, transparency regarding the examined alternatives, and a social plan worthy of the name. A consultation process must not be a polite accompaniment to a downsizing that has already been decided. The proposals of the employees and their representatives must be seriously considered before any dismissals are issued.
But a social plan alone is not enough. It can mitigate the consequences, but it does not eliminate the cause. The cause lies in a healthcare policy that subjects care to the pressure of case numbers, flat-rate payments, competition between locations, and cost accounting. Healthcare must not be treated as a commodity. A hospital is not a branch office. Patients are not customers. Nursing, emergency medical services, and medicine are not products that can be scaled back if they are not profitable enough at a particular location.
What’s needed is not naive hope in the state as a neutral problem solver. What’s needed is democratic control of healthcare from the bottom up: by employees, unions, patients, communities, and the general public. The question shouldn’t be: Which location is profitable? The question must be: What kind of care does the population need, what working conditions do staff need, and how will society provide the necessary resources?
A truly public healthcare system means more than just state ownership. It means removing it from the logic of the market and competition. It means planning based on need rather than case numbers. It means control by those who work in healthcare and depend on its services. It means that training, staffing levels, emergency services, acute care, and regional accessibility are not treated as cost issues, but as societal necessities.
Menziken illustrates what’s at stake: If proximity isn’t profitable, it’s eliminated. If on-call availability incurs costs, it’s reduced. If employees no longer fit into the equation, they’re laid off. Our resistance is directed precisely against this logic.
Health is not a commodity. Healthcare is not a business. But in capitalism, it is repeatedly treated as such – even when the state is involved. Therefore, we need not only different forms of ownership, but also a different question of power: Who decides on healthcare provision? The balance sheet, the board of directors, and competition between locations – or the people who need and provide healthcare every day?
Dominik Schrott
Party of Labour Aargau
