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Published On: Fri, Sep 23rd, 2016

Petit defended Vamed in SZV board meeting

general-hospital

Austrian company files injunction against outcome bidding process

GREAT BAY – When Minister Emil Lee (Public Health) met with the board of social and health insurance agency SZV in December of last year to discuss the hospital project he found that the chairman of the board, Dr. Michel Petit, “was very much protecting the non-bid offer from Vamed.”

“He said we should bring in a couple of consultants to verify the price,” Lee said yesterday at the Council of Ministers press briefing. “I was adamant that the right way to go was with an open and transparent bidding process.”

Nevertheless, Lee added, Dr. Petit contracted the law office VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne for $30,000 to write an advice about how SZV was operating and about the functioning of the director. Not too long ago, Dr. Petit resigned as chairman. There were accusations made, but never calls for an urgent meeting about concerns for the health of the SZV funds. In my opinion, Dr. Petit was in the best position to defend those funds and SZV but he never said anything. Instead he resigned and went to the Prosecutor’s Office to “protect” his reputation.”

Lee briefly addressed the nonsense reporting that the new hospital would not have a dialysis center. “That is an attempt to confuse the people,” he noted.

A hiccup in the road towards the new hospital, or rather a nuisance as the minister called it, is the initiative of the Austrian company Vamed that lost the bid for the project, to file an injunction in an attempt to reverse the outcome of the bidding process.

“That injunction was filed by the law office of VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne, who was already the legal counsel for SZV. That seems to me to be somewhat of a conflict of interest. Why do this now? Is this an attempt to delay the project until after the elections with the hope that a reshuffling of the ministers would open the possibility to go back to the non-bid project? I am asking myself those questions.”