ENThe main hospital in Amberg, Germany, is Klinikum St. Marien Amberg, the general hospital of this town in the Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz) in eastern Bavaria. It has surgery and internal medicine, a certified cancer centre, a round-the-clock emergency department and a maternity unit.
This page covers the hospital’s status, what it treats, when a university hospital in the region fits better, and how admission from abroad works.
Klinikum St. Marien Amberg: What Kind of Hospital It Is
Klinikum St. Marien is a municipal hospital, owned by the town of Amberg and run as a public-law municipal enterprise (Kommunalunternehmen). It calls itself a Schwerpunktkrankenhaus — a hospital with a wide range of specialist departments — providing care close to home for the town and the surrounding area. It has set up a perinatal centre for high-risk pregnancies and premature babies with Klinikum Weiden.
It is also an academic teaching hospital (akademisches Lehrkrankenhaus) of the universities of Erlangen-Nürnberg and Regensburg: their medical students spend their final, practical year here.
What Patients Are Treated For in Amberg
Amberg covers the main fields of a general hospital, with surgery and internal medicine at its core. Surgical departments include general, abdominal and chest surgery, vascular surgery, trauma surgery and orthopaedics, neurosurgery, urology and children’s surgery; knee and hip replacements are done at a joint replacement centre (Endoprothetikzentrum). Internal medicine has four departments: cardiology and kidney medicine; gastroenterology and oncology; geriatrics; and lung and sleep medicine. There are also neurology, gynaecology and obstetrics, paediatrics and radiotherapy.
Several centres are certified. The oncology centre is certified regularly under the rules of the German Cancer Society (Deutsche Krebsgesellschaft) and includes certified centres for breast, bowel, pancreatic, prostate, kidney, gynaecological and digestive-organ cancers. Every cancer patient’s plan goes to a weekly tumour conference, and partners CCC ER-EMN and CCC Ostbayern link the centre to university-level cancer care. The stroke unit is certified regularly by the German Stroke Society and LGA InterCert, most recently as supra-regional, and the chest pain unit by the German Cardiac Society.
If something happens during a stay in the region, the central emergency department (Zentrale Notaufnahme) is open around the clock for every kind of emergency, from cuts to strokes and heart attacks; children have their own emergency unit (Kindernotaufnahme). Doctors there decide quickly whether outpatient treatment is enough or admission is needed. In a life-threatening situation, call 112; for urgent problems that are not life-threatening when practices are closed, call 116117, as the Federal Ministry of Health’s patient portal explains. An out-of-hours doctors’ practice (KVB-Bereitschaftspraxis) also runs at the hospital in the evenings, at weekends and on public holidays.
For childbirth, there is an obstetrics department with a delivery room (Kreißsaal), and the perinatal centre is of the highest level (Level 1), caring for even the smallest premature babies. A virtual 360° tour of the delivery room also comes in English. Expectant parents can join free online evenings on birth and birth preparation on Teams, without registration, and put questions to the head midwife and a senior doctor; a short note about them on the home page is in English, other information for parents is in German. The unit itself explains what to bring and expect when the birth is registered and in antenatal classes. For mothers coming from abroad, see our page on childbirth in Germany.
When a University Hospital in the Region Fits Better
A university hospital fits better for a rare disease, an especially complex operation or a tumour that a university cancer centre’s tumour board should review. For Amberg, that means above all University Hospital Regensburg, a maximum-care hospital (Maximalversorgung) with 839 beds, owned by the Free State of Bavaria and responsible for all of eastern Bavaria. It has treated inpatients since 1992; before that, from 1984, it offered only outpatient dentistry.
Complex cases also go to Nuremberg Hospital (Klinikum Nürnberg), a municipal maximum-care hospital on two campuses in the city, Nord and Süd. It is one of the largest municipal hospitals in Germany and an AlenMed partner.
The third option is Erlangen University Hospital, the hospital of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), which provides maximum care alongside research and medical teaching. Which hospital suits a case is decided by doctors after reviewing the records.
Treatment in Amberg for a Patient from Abroad
The hospital alone decides whether it accepts a self-paying patient from abroad, once its doctors have reviewed the records. Klinikum St. Marien is not an AlenMed partner, so no place can be promised in advance; if Amberg declines, the enquiry can go to a university hospital in the region.
The enquiry needs discharge reports, CT or MRI scans on disc, histology results if a biopsy was done, and a list of current medicines with doses, all translated into German.
Frequently asked questions
Is the hospital in Amberg a university hospital?
No. Klinikum St. Marien is a municipal hospital and a teaching hospital of the universities of Erlangen-Nürnberg and Regensburg, whose medical students spend their practical year here. The region’s university hospitals are in Regensburg and Erlangen. Amberg itself has a certified oncology centre and a certified stroke unit.
Is information from the hospital in Amberg available in English?
Partly. The website is in German, but its virtual 360° tours of the delivery room, endoscopy, the cardiac catheter laboratory and the outpatient surgery centre have English versions, and the home page has a short English note about the birth information evenings. With AlenMed, an interpreter attends consultations.
Do I need a referral to be treated at the hospital in Amberg?
Not for a consultation: most patients come with a referral from a family doctor or specialist, but the hospital says they can also attend a department’s consultation hours (Sprechstunde) directly. For admission, it asks for the insurance card, a referral and any X-rays and earlier records.
How AlenMed Arranges Treatment in Amberg
AlenMed translates the records into German and sends the enquiry to Klinikum St. Marien or, if the case needs it, to a university hospital in Regensburg or Erlangen or a partner hospital in Nuremberg; see arranging treatment in Germany.
If the hospital takes the patient, we ask it for a cost estimate, and payment goes directly to the hospital. We help with the visa invitation, provide an interpreter at consultations and find accommodation for patient and relatives. Our office is in Munich; our partner hospitals are across Germany.
This material is for reference only and is not an offer; the treatment plan is decided by a doctor at a face-to-face consultation.