Health Ministry Orders Termination of Contract for New Children's Hospital

The Health Ministry has ordered the termination of a contract for building a new children's hospital which would involve the completion of a complex of buildings nextdoor to Sofia's Alexandrovska Hospital.

This transpired on Monday from a Health Ministry letter to the National Citizens' Initiative for a Real Children's Hospital, which has been campaigning for a restart of the project. In the letter, Deputy Health Minister Dimiter Petrov says that on July 5 his ministry ordered the Healthcare Investment Company for a Children's Hospital (HICCH) to discontinue all activities related to the implementation of the engineering contract and all procedures arising from that contract in accordance with the Public Procurement Act related to independent construction supervision and investor control.

The Health Ministry has also asked the HICCH to start a procedure to terminate the contract with civil-law combination Detsko Zdrave (Children's Health), which comprises companies of the Glavbolgarstroy group and has won a public procurement contract worth 93.4 million leva after VAT for the design, construction and designer supervision of a National General Children's Hospital. As a reason for that, the Health Ministry cited a position expressed by the Regional Development and Public Works Ministry, which said that it is unacceptable to draw up a detailed site development plan to define the status of the unfinished structures nextdoor to Alexandrovska Hospital.

The contract with Detsko Zrave was signed in April 2020 by the then health minister Kiril Ananiev. The buildings at Alexandrovska Hospital which were to be completed had their first-sod ceremony back in 1978. The project was abandoned at the rough construction stage some 30 years ago. The idea that...