The construction of a new hospital in Bratislava is to progress, as on June 11, the government approved the proposal of a feasibility study of the investment tabled by the Health Ministry.
This moved the project from a preparartory phase to the implementation phase the TASR newswire wrote. The construction of a new hospital in Bratislava could be finalised in autumn 2017, head of the Institute for Health Policy at the Health Ministry, Ivan Poprocký, said for TASR. Health Minister Zuzana Zvolenská stressed that the health-care infrastructure in the Slovak capital is in a disastrous state, and the project proposed as public-private partnership is set in a way for the hospital not to need state financial support in the future. The new hospital is expected to have a balanced budget. Poprocký added that the business model proposed in the study sees the expenses of operation and those to repay the investment to private investor as being covered merely from the public health insurance collected.
The tender for the concessionaire should start by the end of this year and could end in December 2015.
The study that ministry paid €720,000 without VAT for is secret, however. The main reason alleged are the results of financial analyses which could impact the negotiating position of state towards the prospective concessionaire, according to Poprocký. Former health minister Viliam Novotný (a Slovak Democratic and Christian Union-SDKÚ MP) opined for the SITA newswire that due to the study being classified, it is not clear how the money invested will return to state.
The new hospital is to be part of the project BioMedPark which foresees the construction of a university hospital, a bio-medical scientific park of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, new premises of the Medical Faculty and the Pharmacy Faculty of the Comenius University, and it is to lie in the current complex of St Michal’s Hospital at Bratislava’s Patrónka neighbourhood.
(Source: TASR, SITA)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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