The development of the hospital in Hódmezővásárhely with EU support may be made impossible by the public space usage fee requested by the municipality, the general director of the institution stated on Friday in the Great Plain city.
Answering a question at a press conference on a different topic, Árpád Kallai said that the public space usage fee requested by the municipality - which is almost 10 percent of the construction costs - is not available in the project budget, and it cannot be used from the hospital's budget either.
At the opinion session of the Hódmezővásárhely Assembly on Thursday, MP Zoltán Horváth (Fidesz–KDNP) requested that the mayor's office waive the HUF 136 million fee that the company working on the expansion of the hospital would have to pay for the use of a small public area next to the hospital for the duration of the construction.
Mayor Péter Márki-Zay (Mindenki Magyarországa Mozgalom) said that the project is covered, including the fee for the use of public land, which also has the function of making businesses financially interested in disrupting the city's traffic as little as possible.
Director-General Árpád Kallai stated that the amount requested by the municipality corresponds to the entire annual medication allowance of the hospital in Hódmezővásárhely or, in a normal period, one year's food costs for the patients. He added that
they worked for years on the preparation of the development, and every penny has a place during the investment.
The director-general called it unprecedented that, at a time when the hospital's employees are fighting with all their might for the lives of patients during the pandemic, a local government is "wracking its head" with how to disable the institution.
The director-general trusts that the municipality will dispense with "this joke" and not undermine the investment.
Source: 888.hu
Featured image: makohirado.hu
