The ordinance approved today by the Government, according to which the projects of new county hospitals can receive up to 2 billion lei, is received by the president of the Sibiu County Council as good news. “It was normal for this to happen,” says Daniela Cîmpean, without being in a hurry to provide details on the strategy to identify the remaining approximately 500 million lei needed.
“Through this ordinance, the way was opened for us to access financing for this investment, which we all want (…) This amount is good news, because it allows us to approach the project without restrictions”, said Daniela Cîmpean for the Council Tower, after the Government meeting.
We specify that in today’s government meeting, the ordinance was approved by which no more than 2 billion lei can be allocated for the construction of a county hospital, exactly the act that the Sibiu County Council needs to solve most of the funding source of the project. In the case of the new county hospital in Sibiu, the total cost amounts to 2.5 billion lei.
In this sense, I asked the president of the CJ Sibiu what will be the strategy that the institution she leads will take in identifying the remaining approximately 500 million lei needed to finance the project.
“I will not tell you now what the strategy is, because we form the strategies at the moment when we have some clear data and some discussions held to know in which direction we will go with these 2 billion. What is very clear is that the County Hospital will be built, as we have always promised the citizens of Sibiu. We will keep our word. Funding is important.
As I have always shown, the part that belonged exclusively to the County Council, regarding the project, was done and we were the first in the country to meet the conditions to access some money. Over time, the question of financing involved certain discussions, but in the end we arrived at the last form of the ordinance to provide for financing that allows us to make this investment that we proposed”, Cîmpean told us.
The fact that the entire amount is not insured does not mean that the county hospital will not be built, he wants to emphasize this.
Asked if there are any fears that this could be related to the election period, i.e. if another Government could turn things upside down, the president of the CJ implied that it would be just a coincidence and that the allocation of money depends on the strategies of the executive.
“If in the public space any issue is interpreted as being related to the electoral period, it is the problem of those who make such interpretations. I want to reach out to people who are in good faith, who are genuinely interested and who actually follow the course of events. Those people will realize that it is about a normative act that was adopted, which was in transparency for a very long time; that it is a change of strategy from last year of the Government, when they thought that the Operational Health Program (SOP), then they will abandon it and make a National Health Program (PNS). It’s a question of the Government’s strategy that I’m not interested in, we’re interested in attracting money for the hospital. That this ordinance was given now, it was given after the consultation period had passed, after it was read in the first reading.
I don’t see why (the strategy) could be linked to the elections, because it was in the Government’s plan to build new hospitals: they started with the PNRR, they continued with the SOP, which in the meantime they changed to the PNS. So it’s a path that didn’t start now, it started years ago. No one disputes that in health there is a need for investment in hospital infrastructure. This is the biggest lack that Romania has, beyond any other deficit. Romania, first of all, suffers from new hospital infrastructure, not rehabilitations, not modernizations. Governments have proposed over time to create programs to make these investments, several programs have been created (…)”.
Insisting to know a term when the subsequent strategy will be announced, Daniela Cîmpean only told us that “I will announce when it is certain”: “But what is certain at this moment is that with the amount that is allocated through this program we will be able to build a new county hospital (…) Being a priority project, the attention is maximum on it and I do not advance deadlines, because you have seen that it does not always depend only on me: what depends on me, I advance, what depends on others – not”.
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