ENAnyone looking for a Vitos hospital in Germany will find not one hospital but a group of hospitals and services in the state of Hesse, most of them working in mental health.
This page explains who runs Vitos, what its clinics treat, what a patient from abroad should know about psychiatric treatment in Germany and how a request is made.
Vitos: a Public Hospital Group in Hesse
Vitos belongs to the Landeswohlfahrtsverband Hessen, the regional welfare association of Hesse, which is the sole shareholder of the non-profit parent company Vitos gGmbH, with its head office in Kassel. The group runs psychiatric, psychosomatic and forensic psychiatric hospitals as well as day clinics and outpatient services at 115 sites in Hesse. Its hospitals are found, for example, in Kassel, Gießen, Marburg, Herborn, Riedstadt and Heppenheim.
For a patient, “public” means that the psychiatric hospitals of Vitos take part in the regional care obligation of Hesse: each of them is responsible for a catchment area. Under Hessian law such a hospital must admit patients from its area, including in emergencies. This is why planned admissions of patients from abroad are arranged individually.
What Vitos Hospitals Treat
Vitos hospitals mainly treat mental illness in adults, children and adolescents, and the group also runs an orthopaedic hospital in Kassel. Its adult clinics for psychiatry and psychotherapy treat all mental illnesses and crises: depression, a lasting low mood in which energy and interest fade; anxiety disorders, in which fear or panic disrupts everyday life; psychoses, in which a person loses touch with reality, hears voices or holds beliefs that are not true; and addiction to alcohol, drugs or medicines. Care is offered on hospital wards, in day clinics, where patients spend the day and go home at night, and in outpatient clinics.
Psychosomatic medicine deals with how mind and body affect each other, for example when physical complaints are linked to emotional strain; Vitos has psychosomatic clinics in Kassel, Gießen, Herborn and Heppenheim, among other places. Children and adolescents, from infancy until they come of age, are treated in the group’s child and adolescent clinics for mental health, for example in Kassel, Marburg, Herborn and Riedstadt, as inpatients, in day clinics or as outpatients.
Neurology is a different story now: since 1 January 2026 the neurology clinic in Weilmünster has been run by the district hospital Kreiskrankenhaus Weilburg, while Vitos keeps a care centre there for people with severe neurological damage. Other options are described on the page on neurology in Germany. The Vitos orthopaedic hospital in Kassel is an acute hospital for orthopaedics and pain medicine that treats all conditions of the musculoskeletal system, with or without surgery. Forensic psychiatry at Vitos takes in people placed there by court order after an offence linked to mental illness or addiction and is not relevant to patients seeking treatment.
Psychiatric Treatment in Germany for Patients from Abroad
For a patient from abroad, language comes first: talking therapies depend on it, and Vitos itself calls mutual understanding a precondition for successful treatment. The practical question is whether the patient can work with a German-speaking therapist or needs an English-speaking one, and this should be asked before admission. Without a shared language, sessions run through medical interpreters, which has its limits: the conversation becomes a three-way one, and not everyone finds it easy to talk about personal matters that way.
Voluntary admission is the rule for planned treatment: a patient is admitted and treated only with their own consent. The length of a stay is decided by the doctors after assessment, so there are no promised timelines. The World Health Organization gives an overview in its fact sheet on mental disorders.
Vitos is not the only option: university hospitals have psychiatric departments too, and University Hospital Frankfurt, for example, has a clinic for psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy. A general overview of psychiatric hospitals in Germany is on a separate page.
Frequently asked questions
Is Vitos a public or a private hospital group?
Vitos is a public group, not a private chain: the sole shareholder of its parent company, Vitos gGmbH, is the Landeswohlfahrtsverband Hessen, the regional welfare association of Hesse. The group’s companies are non-profit and the head office is in Kassel. For a patient from abroad, the key point is that its psychiatric hospitals must admit people from their catchment areas, so planned admissions are arranged individually.
Can a patient from abroad be treated at a Vitos hospital?
That is for the hospital to decide: planned admissions of patients from abroad to Vitos are arranged individually. A request is sent with medical reports on the diagnosis and previous treatment, translated into German. It is worth asking in advance which language the doctor and therapist will use. If a patient chooses Vitos, AlenMed sends the request, but the decision on admission stays with the hospital.
Do Vitos hospitals provide interpreters?
Yes, Vitos tries to arrange an interpreter when one is needed or requested: its hospitals work with interpreting agencies and community interpreting services, and some staff who speak another language fluently are trained to interpret. Which languages are covered in-house differs from site to site, so it is worth asking before admission. For psychotherapy, a therapist who shares the patient’s language matters more.
Does Vitos still treat neurological diseases?
Not in a neurology hospital of its own in Weilmünster: since 1 January 2026 that clinic has been run by the Kreiskrankenhaus Weilburg. Vitos still has a care centre in Weilmünster where people with severe neurological damage live and are looked after by nurses and therapists. The group’s main fields are psychiatry, psychotherapy and psychosomatic medicine, plus the orthopaedic hospital in Kassel.
How AlenMed Handles Requests for Vitos Hospitals
Vitos is not an AlenMed partner hospital, but if a patient wants treatment there, we send a request with medical reports translated into German to the right hospital in the group. The hospital decides on admission.
Otherwise we send the documents to AlenMed partner hospitals with the right department and obtain a cost estimate (Kostenvoranschlag). Payment goes directly to the hospital, and we help with the visa invitation and an interpreter. The company office is in Munich and partner hospitals are across Germany: see hospitals in Germany and arranging treatment in Germany.
This material is for reference only and is not an offer; the treatment plan is decided by a doctor at an in-person consultation.