Successor finally found for the health centre in the Oberägeri GP practice

Karolina Stosiek has taken over as the medical director of the Oberägeri practice. The board of directors of the municipal company, which has been running the practice since the 1st January 2026, is thereby now complete.
 

From the beginning of the year, the health centre in Oberägeri has been run by the municipality. But the Medizinische Grundversorgung Oberägeri AG company has now taken over the running of the GP practice. The chair of the Board of Directors and municipal councillor (Gemeinderätin) Laura Marty-Iten (Forum party) and the mayor (Gemeindepräsident) and member of the Board of Directors Marcel Güntert (FDP: liberal party) have gone through an intense period.

They can now report some positive news: Karolina Stosiek, a specialist in general internal medicine, will take over as medical director of the practice on 1st April. She has been employed at Gesundheitspunkt since 2023, and is familiar with the patients, the practice and the team. ‘This is our ideal solution,’ says Laura Marty-Iten happily.

Karolina Stosiek also has strong support from the employees, and this was evident in discussions, she adds.

The AG will now take over the strategic management of the practice. There is also news in this area: the board of directors is now complete, with Samuel Beck, a specialist in internal medicine, and Walter Häfliger from Oberägeri, a business economist with many years of experience in financial accounting at a hospital AG.

The practice managers also have the support of a specialist company. Docteam is a company that takes on administrative and organisational tasks in the operational area.

Medizinische Grundversorgung Oberägeri AG has been running the practice in Oberägeri since 1st January 2026                                Photo: Stefan Kaiser
Laura Marty-Iten, Oberägeri municipal councillor              
Mayor Marcel Güntert      
GP Karolina Stosiek                 Photos provided

Health centre to be closed for the system changeover
The next step is the system changeover. The health centre will thereby be closed from the 16th to the 26th January for this purpose. According to the website, there may be restrictions between mid-January and early February due to the system changeover.

Nothing will change for the approximately 5,000 registered patients: same location, same telephone number, same email address. The team will also remain the same. ‘The new AG was able to conclude new employment contracts with all employees at the practice,’ says Board of Directors member Marcel Güntert.

Emil Schalch, one of the former owners, will remain medical director during the transition period. His co-founder Joachim Henggeler has now retired completely. The 81-year-old has worked as a GP in Oberägeri for almost 50 years, and the two of them built up the health centre together around seven years ago. At the time, Emil Schalch was approaching retirement age, while Joachim Henggeler was already well past it. They wanted to ensure that Oberägeri continued to have GP coverage, but finding successors proved particularly difficult.

The municipality has supported the project and has twice granted a framework loan of CHF 300,000 for three years at a time. In the summer of 2025, the municipal assembly decided to establish a public limited company with a share capital of CHF 500,000 and an operating loan of CHF 1.27 million.

‘The municipality gradually increased its support,’ says Laura Marty-Iten. First in the form of a service agreement, then with a focus on finding a successor, and now with the takeover.

The biggest challenge remains the shortage of skilled workers, explains Marcel Güntert. In order to be financially viable, the practice must be utilised to its full capacity. 400 to 500 % of the positions for doctors needs to be covered. In other words, the health centre has room for seven to eight doctors, depending on the specialisation and level of employment.

At the moment, things are looking good, with around 420 % of the positions filled. ‘The priority at the moment is the system changeover, which will certainly keep us busy for the next three months,’ explains Güntert.

Will the municipality remain the owner of the practice in the long term? Marty-Iten describes the future as ‘open-ended’. If a committed team wants to take over the practice, they will be open to it. A stake in the AG is also conceivable. ‘But there is no pressure to sell the practice as quickly as possible,’ she says. Consistency and the long-term provision of basic medical care are the overriding goals.