At the moment the project is in the state of reappraisal with some rather logical considerations in process. A big proportion of the land on which the hospital stands is, as a result of the hospital’s development, owned by the City. On top of that, the City further managed to get its foot in the door as there is now a sobering-up centre (záchytka) at Bulovka, which is financed by the City.
Bulovka may be out
Can the hospital Na Bulovce really become a metropolitan hospital? First of all, the capital City Prague has to carry an economic audit and a feasibility study that would provide the necessary data for any decision making process regarding the hospital. The metropolitan hospital would be founded throughout the reorganisation and transformation of the current Faculty Hospital Na Bulovce but nobody has made a decision yet and it seems like it will not be decided for another few months or maybe even years. Besides, the situation of transforming hospitals, as suggested by the Ministry of Health, is not clear. The thing is that the Ministry of Health believes that five big hospitals for Prague are too many, that there should be only three and Bulovka is not a part of the proposal.
Policy statement
The intention to found the metropolitan hospital is based on the policy statement of the Board of the Capital Prague. According to the City, Bulovka is convenient because the City owns the majority of land in the area and more then half of the buildings that were built on the land. The transfer would be therefore easier and less complicated than in the case of other hospitals. The decision hasn’t been made yet and in order to find out if and how the transformation is possible, we need to carry a detailed audit and a feasibility study. In this way we are going to get quality data necessary for the decision making regarding the building of the hospital,
said Prague Mayor Pavel Bém. The project, however, depends on the Ministry’s concept of health care. Our intention is to preserve the current health care to the largest possible extent and to further develop specialised institutions,
said Mayor Pavel Bém. He also established an expert group that will evaluate all the pros and cons.
Can the city afford it?
The group will carry out the feasibility study that will include all possible variants of further steps from technical, economical and qualitative point of views. It will recommend the best possible options and estimate expenses; last but not least it will also verify the sustainability of investment and identify potential risks. The main purpose of the study is to carry out a reliable analysis of the project. The outcome is not to be understood as a definite solution of the problem but it is merely a collection of data and their evaluation. The City of Prague considers it a very difficult and significant step with many question marks and therefore we want to be equipped with quality data for further negotiation with the Ministry of Health,
said councilman Milan Pešák.
Oskar Exner