I recently found out that Assoc. Prof. Angel Kunchev has an employment contract with a center for infectious diseases and had an impact on the mosquito treatment procedure. This was said in the program “Face to Face“ on bTV by the Minister of Health Katya Ivkova.
“I have an extremely high respect for the entire professional career of Assoc. Prof. Kunchev, who resigned as Chief State Health Inspector“, shared the Minister of Health.
According to her, the resignation application was submitted by him. “Since we worked together before, he has been telling me for about 2 years that he really wants to retire, he has acquired the right to a pension. This is the first aspect, why I did not take the opportunity to ask him to stay“.
“The second aspect is that I received signals that point to possible influence by Assoc. Prof. Kunchev on the tender procedure for the treatment of mosquito populations“, she commented.
“I am neither an investigative body, nor do I want to investigate through the media, but it is still important information, which is why I am sharing it. I have sent the received signal to the competent authorities. This was the other reason why I did not take the opportunity to ask him to stay“, Ivkova pointed out.
She explained that she had just recently learned that Assoc. Prof. Kunchev has a second employment contract with the National Center for Communicable and Parasitic Diseases. “As Chief State Health Inspector, Assoc. Prof. Kunchev has a key role not only in terms of state health control, but also in the supervision of infectious diseases“.
“It is not my job to comment on whether it is a conflict of interest or not, but given that the functions of the Chief State Health Inspector cover the supervision of infectious diseases, and the National Center is a national center for infectious and parasitic diseases, this fact should also be investigated“, believes Ivkova.
According to her, this contract states that he works there as an associate professor, but in any case, this circumstance also prevented her from taking any other step, other than accepting his application and submitting it to the Council of Ministers accordingly.
“Assoc. Prof. Kunchev has not been released at the moment, because he submitted his resignation with one month's notice. In reality, he will not be an employee of the Ministry of Health until September 26 of this year. For now, he has taken a leave of absence until half of this month“, she shared.
Ivkova also commented on the change of management of the investment company for the construction of the National Children's Hospital.
“What was found in 2023, we actually found again. A terrain for an extremely important national priority – namely the National Children's Hospital, left at ground zero. The tender procedure was developed, but it is in the Supreme Administrative Court - we have a legal impasse. The two results that have been achieved so far are negative“, the minister pointed out.
She shared that she has taken the necessary actions within the framework of the law. “Anyone can check the documents submitted for the registration of a new board of directors in the Commercial Register“.
Desislava Malinova says that her removal is in violation of the Public Enterprises Act. She believes that the assignment, which is in the process of legal proceedings, is entirely in accordance with a plan prepared and adopted by the Ministry of Health.
Minister Ivkova stated that there is no documentary information that the tender procedure was coordinated with the Ministry of Health. “I explicitly asked, I was not presented with any“.
“I had invited Malinova during a management meeting. She had submitted the entire tender procedure binder and I was surprised to find that the report of the working group that prepared the technical specifications was one page“, Ivkova explained.
According to her, in this report for preparing the technical specifications for such a serious infrastructure project there is not even a reference to the fact that with the assistance of the European Investment Bank for technical support from an international consortium, the relevant documentation was based on the report of this international consortium.
„In the report of the working group that prepared the specifications, there is not even a line about this report by the international consultants. Yes, the report is attached to the documentation, but purely administratively it is proper, when a working group is responsible for developing such serious documentation, to still present all the facts. It is frivolous for the report to be one page“, she believes.
„The ambition is within the mandate of this government to build a children's hospital. But not only that. Not only the building itself has been built, but also the entire accompanying infrastructure. In addition, there must be staffing for this hospital to function“, commented Ivkova.
„I had explicitly mentioned that no work has been done so far in the direction of purely medical activity. Only, with the support of the European Union, a project is being implemented to finance specializations for Bulgarian doctors“, pointed out the minister.
Ivkova explained that the necessary work has not been done at all to ensure that the staff can be provided from now on. „By the way, the tender documentation itself plans the number of doctors, the number of nurses, and the number of orderlies, but these are just numbers in tables. And the great work that needs to be done to ensure these staff has not begun“.
“The dialogue with the medical profession, with the profession of healthcare professionals should have started much earlier. Yes, within the framework of the Public Council for the Children's Hospital, I know that talks have been held, but that is not the essence“, she pointed out.
“Documentation has not even been submitted to the Executive Agency “Medical Supervision“ for the preparation of a comprehensive assessment. This is also an essential element so that the processes can run in parallel“, commented Ivkova.