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European Commissioner for Regional Policy Corina Cretu on Friday called on Romania's Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu to speed up the completion of documents for the construction of three regional hospitals in Romania.
On a visit to the Cardiovascular Institute of Iasi on Friday, Cretu said that if works on the reginal hospitals fails to start by 2018, there will be a risk of the allocated funds being lost.
"One year passed since the decision to build three regional hospitals was okayed by the European Commission and the locales for them are still not in place. Mr Minister explained that some steps are to be taken that require time, and also feasibility studies. Hopefully the actual construction starts by the end of 2018, or else we cannot see any physical possibility for the hospitals to be ready by 2020. We are very much interested in the three regional hospitals being built, because our estimates show that the three hospitals will provide higher quality services to nearly one million people from around Romania (...). Any delay means in fact delaying the start of the investment and running the risk of losing the European funds allocated throughout 2020," said Cretu.
She added that the funds allocated for the construction of the regional hospitals in the Romanian counties of Iasi, Craiova and Cluj are standing at 150 million euros.
