Penta to Build New Hospital Worth More Than €100 mn in Bratislava
Bratislava, November 11 (TASR) – Financial group Penta will build a new hospital in the area of Bory in Bratislava, TASR learnt on Friday.
The construction work is due to start in 2018, and the hospital should be able to begin admitting patients in the first half of 2021. The investment should reach more than €100 million.
This investment will be a significant turning point in the Slovak health-care system, said Penta Investments associate Eduard Matak. He hopes that Penta will be able to convince the public that its presence in the health-care system won’t be negative, but beneficial for people. The new hospital will come under the remit of the Svet zdravia hospital network owned by Penta Investments.
“We want to prove that we’re able to provide health care at the highest European level under current conditions of public health insurance. I believe that this project will become a model for the whole region of central and eastern Europe,” said Svet zdravia head Lubos Lopatka.
The new hospital is set to employ around 1,200 people. It should have 14 operating theatres, a casualty ward, 36 single-bed rooms in an intensive care unit (ICU), a maternity unit, a perinatal care centre, a family-oriented ICU for newborns, a complex stroke treatment centre, a traumacentre and a transplant centre.
The new hospital will accept clients of all health insurance companies, said Lopatka.
Lopatka added, however, that none of the health insurance companies has negotiated any contracts as yet. He claims that people shouldn’t have to pay extra money for being admitted into hospital or surgery. “They can come just as easily as they now visit any hospital in Bratislava,” he stated.
The head of the project, Anton Hanusin, would like to attract doctors and nurses from abroad to work in the new hospital. “The first important people will be hired as early as at this stage in order for them to be able to participate actively in defining the detailed design and processes. We’ll start recruitment for most of the posts some one year before the planned opening,” he stated.
Cardio and thoracic anesthesiologist Vladimir Cernak, who currently works in the Netherlands, will thus come back to Slovakia.
The state has plans to build a new hospital in Bratislava as well. Lopatka didn’t want to speculate as to whether or not it would be an advantage if a new state hospital didn’t exist. Everyone’s agreed that the capital city needs a decent hospital, noted Lopatka. “We don’t want to wait and speculate; we’re launching the project with good intentions, and our decision to build this hospital in the Bory area is final,” he added.
