We have a investigative show which runs on German commercial TV. Team Wallraff.
Team Wallraff has this one single theme....undercover reporting. They actually go out....make up a fake alias....get hired by someone....then spend days on the inside getting material for their episodes. Last year, their chief target was a group of Burger King operations in Germany which had numerous issues. The public watched the single report.....got disturbed and frustrated over what they saw, and reacted. Burger King....nation-wide....suffered a serious lack of trust.
Last night, Team Wallraff ran an investigation that came mostly from work of last summer (2015). The city of Wiesbaden has a couple of hospitals in the area.....but the Doctor Horst Schmidt Clinic is the 'king' of all Hessen hospitals. It's the largest operation in the Hessen state and up until last night....was generally regarded as a fairly good hospital.
By the end of the hour-long investigative show (probably forty minutes dedicated toward this one hospital).....you just felt it was a third-world Banana-Republic hospital. It'd be the last place on Earth that you'd want to go.....if you were really bad off.
Between shortages of personnel, unhygienic situations, and chaos.....this was marginally a two-star operation. Disinfecting after use? It's a hap-hazard type thing that might happen, or might not happen. It just means infection is a strong possibility....if you came in with something.....you will leave with something even more serious.
At some point, with the hidden camera on the fake nurse-helper (the reporter)....there's some urgent event occurring and protective gloves need to be put on. She reaches over and pulls out fresh gloves out of a box. Trying to put them on....they fall apart. The other nurse comments that it's the cheapo stuff that the hospital buys and it happens a lot. So the fake-nurse pulls out another pair and very carefully puts these gloves on.
The hint from the show? By the end....what you see is a German public hospital that economically viable....probably showing some profit....with strong and effective cost-measures in place (centering on quality of material, and limited number of employees). The end-result is a place where you probably want to avoid at all costs.
Damaged reputation? I'm guessing the company that owns the Wiesbaden hospital are meeting this morning for damage-control, and their PR-guy is looking for bits of positive spin to give newspapers that want questions answered. Some threat to sue the TV network will be discussed....but there's just too much video for them to get any court to agree with them.
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