Sofia, June 3 (BTA) - Caretaker Health Minister Stoycho Katsarov
 Thursday told a news briefing that he has dismissed the board
of directors of Sofia's Lozenets Hospital after checks there
established violations related to siphoning off the National
Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) and illegal kidney
transplantations.The checks at the multi-profile hospital will
continue, he said.

Lozenets Hospital is also known as the government hospital. It
was designated a university hospital in early April 2021.

According to a probe launched in January following a journalist
investigation, Lozenets Hospital reported 60 treated patients in
 November 2020 when none were actually treated there, the Health
 Minister said. On the day the check was opened, the hospital
returned the NHIF money for those patients with a "technical
errors" explanation. "According to me, there cannot possibly be
60 technical errors. This is not a technical error but siphoning
 off the NHIF," Katsarov commented.
  
In the Health Minister's words, the results of the check were
already clear back when his predecessor, Kostadin Angelov, was
in office, so Angelov should have known about them. Other
hospitals will be probed for such cases, too, Katsarov noted.

He said further that from 2019 to April 27, 2021, a total of 14
living donor kidney transplantations were carried out in
Lozenets Hospital, all donors being young people from Ukraine
and Moldova and all recipients, "uncles and aunts" from Israel,
Japan, Germany, Oman, and other countries. There are all grounds
 to believe that these people were not relatives, and the law
does not allow living donor transplantation without a direct kin
 relation between the donor and the recipient, the Minister
argued. The Medical Supervision Executive Agency has done a
check and there is information from the corresponding countries
that these are fake identities, he went on to say, adding that
the documents were submitted to the Health Ministry but no
reaction followed.
    
In another case, a deceased donor liver transplantation was
performed on  a patient that had been fourth, and not first, on
the waiting list approved by the Medical Supervision Executive
Agency. The first person on the list was supposed to get the
transplant in Sofia's Military Medical Academy but a phone call
later, the fourth on the list received the transplant in
Lozenets Hospital. The latter patient held a very high position
in the state administration, "possibly the highest position, but
 I cannot say names because the law forbids it," Katsarov said.
  
He noted he is not certain whether the entire leadership of the
hospital was informed about these cases, but Executive Director
Lyubomir Spassov was informed for sure and possibly carried out
most of these transplantations.

A new board of directors of Lozenets Hospital will be appointed
later on Thursday, it transpired at the Health Minister's
briefing.

NV/DS

Source: Sofia