Health Minister Sacks Sofia Emergency Hospital Board

A probe has established that several employees of Sofia's emergency hospital have committed serious violations. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's Health Minister, Desislava Atanasova, has appointed a new Board of Directors of the emergency hospital "Pirogov" in the capital Sofia.

Dr. Chavdar Marinov and Prof. Danail Petrov have been released from duty but are still responsible about any inflicted damages. The CEO of the emergency hospital, Prof. Dimitar Radenovski, is keeping his post.

The new members of the board are Zvezditsa Velizarova, Stefan Belchev, Dr. Petar Nikolakov, and Gergana Kirova with whom the Board now has five members instead of the previous three.

They have a 7-day deadline to seal an additional clause in the contract for the hospital's management and register the change with the Business Registry.

In recent days, Atanasova threatened to replace the Board and the management of the key Sofia health facility on grounds of serious violations established by a financial probe she requested.

The probe has found suspicious contracts such as for arranging books for BGN 5 400, for snow removal for BGN 7 000, for designer furniture, for financial services, dummy patients, and others.

Problems have been found also with bonuses given to some staff, charity campaigns and public tenders.

Speaking for the media Thursday, Chief Prosecutor, Boris Velchev, advised them from refrain commenting on the audit and investigation report without having examined them. Velchev pointed out that he is yet to take a look at the "voluminous" document.

This is the very first such report on the top emergency hospital in Bulgaria, which is operating under deplorable conditions and chronic shortage of funds, medications, and consumables.

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