site.btaPublic Procurements for Cancer Screening Tests to Be Investigated for Overpricing

In an interview for the Bulgarian National Radio aired on Sunday, caretaker Minister of Health Michail Okoliyski said that the public procurements for cervical and colorectal cancer screening tests will be investigated. Earlier this week, Okoliyski reported that significant overpricing had been identified in two public procurement procedures at the Ministry of Health.

The investigating bodies will be the Public Financial Inspection Agency and, if necessary, the prosecution service, Okoliyski specified. He said: "We have been waiting for years for a real screening test for human papillomavirus (HPV). We are not just talking about cervical cancer here. We are talking about diseases caused by HPV that also affect men, which is why we are trying to vaccinate both boys and girls. Through this screening, we can test hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians, both men and women."

The Minister said that the investigation should check whether the tests correspond to the market price in other countries. He added: "We have hypotheses and data that such an offer from the Tsotsorkov Foundation, which conducted the previous screening for colon cancer that was widely successful, is eight times cheaper."

Okoliyski stated: "The ministry needs to find out who made the decision to assign conducting the market research to an external member and how that happened. This should be a very serious procedure involving many people acting as supervisory bodies." The Minister alleged that the overpricing was caused by somebody who wants "to have houses in Tuscany or somewhere else".

The Minister reported that some investments under the Recovery and Resilience Plan may get lost. His Ministry is working in cooperation with Maria Nedina, the caretaker Deputy Prime Minister for European Funding, in order to try to save the investment in the State Psychiatric Hospital in Kurilo. If successful, the hospital will be transferred to a new building in Sofia. This investment may fall through because there are still two weeks left to finish renovations of the building.