Record numbers pass through Basel Airport - for the fifth year running; Basel’s spiralling education costs; Will the Bruderholz Hospital Fight to Live Another Day?; Beaten up - all because of a cigarette

News For 22 December 2015

The first eleven months of this year saw nearly 6 point 6 million people pass through Basel’s airport – 66 thousand more that for the whole of 2014 and the fifth record year in a row for the popular terminal – boosted in recent years by the decision by EasyJet to make Basel a regional hub. The full year totals are pointing to a year-on-year rise of 15 percent– five times the increase forecast.

Freight traffic is also on the rise – reaching 93 thousand tons for the first eleven months of 2015. This is in large part thanks to facilities provided by the new cargo terminal – opened in January, primarily to meet the needs of Basel’s pharmaceutical industry.

The new business isn’t to everybody’s liking though. The increased traffic – especially night-time take-offs and landings – have given rise to sharp increases in noise pollution levels in some neighbouring French and Swiss communities.

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A row is breaking out in Basel-Stadt and the cause is all about education costs. Although numbers of schoolchildren fell 8 percent to just under 15 thousand in the 8 years to 2012, overall costs have risen by a disproportionate 14 percent. A group of cross-party politicians is now turning the spotlight on the City’s education department. They’re asking why in the same period, numbers of full-time staff grew from 152 to 206 positions and why at the end of that same period, each child now costs nearly 23 and a half thousand Francs to educate each year, as compared with just over 19 thousand in 2004.

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A People’s Initiative to overturn plans to close the Bruderholz Hospital is to go ahead. In order to trigger a referendum, initiatives such as these need to register 15 hundred signatures. As it turned out, senior medical staff and the Hospital’s supporters – representing all local political parties – collected three times that number within one month. They say that retaining current primary health care facilities in Bruderholz as one of the Canton’s three main medical centres is both essential and economically feasible.

The future of Bruderholz has been the centre of political discussion for a number of years. In June of this year, both Basel parliaments announced plans to jointly operate a regional heath authority, with two main hospitals in Basel Stadt and Liestal, and replacing the Bruderholz facility with a scaled-down day-clinic.

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Last Friday, Basel-Stadt’s Department of the Economy, Social Affairs and the Environment announced it is to open up the civil defence facility in the St. Johann part of the city as a temporary refugee centre. The complex can provide housing and round the clock care house up to 50 people.

The decision to re-allocate resources forms part of a response to the increasing number of refugees arriving in the City – all driven by the large populations reaching Europe’s shores from strife-riven countries such as Syria and Iraq.

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Shortly before 5 last Saturday morning, as a 29 year-old lit a cigarette after finishing a street-side snack, he was approached by five other men who demanded he give them cigarettes as well. When he refused, the group set on him and beat him up before running away after passers-by began to take notice. The victim was given first aid. A police of the area search failed to find the attackers.

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And finally, those who like messing about in boats will welcome the decision by the Basel Stadt parliament to buy a new leisure ship for the Basler Personen-schiff-fahrt company – Basel’s very own passenger shipping line operating up and down the Rhine. The company, wholly-owned by the City, already has three boats catering mostly for the tourist trade. The new addition will cost taxpayers nine million Francs.