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The three regional hospitals the government pledged to deliver will be built with European funds from the next programming period, because the technical documentation stage will be completed somewhere towards the end of this year or early next year, Minister of European Funds Rovana Plumb said on Thursday evening.
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"We pledged to build three regional hospitals with European funding. The budget allocation for these regional hospitals was made in 2015 and is of only 150 million euro for all three. A regional hospital is a major investment that also requires technical documentation that cannot be done overnight. Nothing has been done in 2016, and talks with our consultant - the European Investment Bank - my colleagues from the Health Ministry and the Development Ministry are working with only kicked off in 2017; everything technical must be completed in due time, but this cannot be done overnight. There is a multitude of technical elements. This is not just about the feasibility study, also included here are the technical project, the construction project and mapping," Rovana Plumb said at Digi TV.
According to the minister, the cost of the technical documentation is 40 million euro per hospital, and the drafting phase will be completed by the end of 2020 or early 2021. Subsequently, the tender for the award of the three hospitals' building contracts will be organised.
"If there are no challenges - although we are accustomed to having them - construction may start towards the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021 at the earliest, which means that we will enter the next programming period. For the current programming period 2014 - 2023, as we have 3 more years, we intend to pay for these documents from the allocated money and the actual construction will be carried out with European funds from the next programming period," Plumb explained.
Rovana Plumb emphasized that in the current programming period the money will be used only for the design of the technical documentation.
The Minister of European Funds refrained from advancing any deadline for the completion of the hospitals, saying she wanted to steer clear of uncertainties.
The minister also said that the first trialogue on a part of the legislative package that underlies the absorption of European funds will take place next week in Brussels.
AGERPRES .
