Interim prime minister Ilie Bolojan and other officials attended the inauguration of the new cerebrovascular pathology and neurosurgery center within the Cluj County Emergency Hospital on Saturday, August 29. Another medical center was inaugurated on Monday, August 31, in Târgu Mureș, central Romania. Both projects were completed with EU-backed PNRR funds.

The new center is able to provide modern services in the field of neurosurgical pathologies, has an area dedicated to imaging investigations, and is equipped with equipment for neurosurgical and neurovascular investigations and treatment. The center, built in Cluj, has six operating rooms for neurosurgical procedures, 105 beds, of which 26 are intensive care beds, the Romanian government said in a press release.

The facility was financed from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which ended on August 31, and from national funds and was badly needed, according to the head of the executive, since most serious cases in the Transylvania region are treated in Cluj-Napoca. 

“I am here for this great city, Cluj-Napoca, a locomotive of Romania's development, for the people here,” the interim prime minister also said at the inauguration of the Cerebrovascular Pathology and Neurosurgery Center in Cluj-Napoca.

Bolojan thanked the doctors and medical students in the city. “I am grateful to them for what they do in our medical system, Cluj being one of the strongest centers from this point of view,” he said. 

Cluj County Council president Alin Tișe avoided delivering any message at the inauguration event of the new medical center, amid a spat with the prime minister. Instead, Cluj-Napoca mayor Emil Boc was alongside Bolojan, delivering an extensive message about the PNRR-funded investment carried out in Cluj-Napoca with the government's support.

“The new hospital, the Cerebrovascular Pathology and Neurosurgery Center, was built from scratch,” Boc said, emphasizing that the investment secured through the PNRR amounts to more than EUR 50 million. “Cluj's medical sector is richer as of today. Richer with a new hospital, with more than 100 beds and state-of-the-art technology for doctors and patients,” he added.

The new facility has 79 beds for neurosurgery and neurology patients, 26 intensive care beds for neurosurgical and neurovascular pathologies, 6 operating rooms for neurosurgical procedures, and a 70-square-meter hybrid room, a modern imaging area equipped with a 3 Tesla MRI, multislice CT and angiograph, among others.

The Cluj mayor further emphasized that the hospital will become “a new landmark of Romanian medicine.”

The Cluj-Napoca County Emergency Clinical Hospital is one of the first six Class I medical units in Romania, alongside the county hospitals in Constanța, Iași, Târgu Mureș, Timișoara and the Central Military Hospital, the government also said. 

New medical facility in Târgu Mureș

Alongside the Cerebrovascular Pathology and Neurosurgery Center in Cluj-Napoca, Romanian authorities also inaugurated the Emergency Institute for Cardiovascular Diseases and Transplant (IUBCvT) in Târgu Mureș on Monday, August 31. The facility was valued at over RON 770 million, out of which roughly RON 500 million came from the EU-backed National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).

The facility has 214 beds for inpatients and five beds for day hospitalization, surgery rooms equipped to a top technological level, as well as modern spaces dedicated exclusively to investigation, treatment and intensive care (ICU) activities.

The new institute is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, while the structure and equipment of the new rooms were specifically designed to reduce the risk of nosocomial infections.

Also present at this inauguration, the Romanian prime minister highlighted that Romania was unable to fully take advantage of the PNRR funds.

“In healthcare, we started with a PNRR budget of more than EUR 2 billion and, through successive cuts, we reached just over EUR 1 billion, which means that the money was not lost, but went to other areas where it could be spent. And this means that from 19 hospitals, after the PNRR was rearranged in 2023, we ended up completing eight,” Bolojan said, cited by Agerpres.

At the same time, the interim prime minister spoke about the need to simplify procurement procedures and partnerships with local authorities.

radu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Ilie Bolojan on Facebook)