St Michael’s Hospital in Bratislava (source: TASR)
St Michael’s Hospital in Bratislava organised overpriced competition to purchase medical equipment, the Let’s Stop Corruption initiative said. The hospital’s management however refutes the claim and wants to discuss it with the foundation’s representatives on November 23, the TASR newswire reported.
“I refuse to be drawn into the political fight,” head of the hospital Marián Križko told the press, as quoted by TASR, adding that the information about the overpriced purchases is “politically motivated”.
The foundation’s head Pavel Sibyla however says he does not know about any political motivation.
He described the competition totalling €22.7 million whose aim was to purchase 900 items altogether.
“Of the selected items we have been comparing, the hospital bought only four items at a cheaper price, but the rest were overpriced,” Sibyla added, as quoted by TASR.
The foundation compared about 89 items with the database of purchases of a variety of medical equipment by the Health Ministry, as well as information from the central register of contracts and publicly accessible price lists of distributors.
Sibyla called the situation when a hospital bought several items via one competitor and one supplier non-standard. In this case, the items were supplied by the company E-BA tpz. The compared items comprised some 37 percent of the order, while the price was higher than standard in some 50 percent, according to the foundation.
Križko however claimed that it compared the equipment with the items that had other specifications and configurations and that they also used prices excluding VAT, as reported by TASR.
