This year, 27 hospitals in Romania signed financial contracts with PNRR funds. However, the Ministry of Health recently removed 6 hospitals from the list, after Romania lost almost a third of the PNRR grant funds allocated to hospitals. The remaining list of 21 targets includes new hospitals to be built or completely rebuilt, new sections or buildings, and renovation of existing hospitals or hospital buildings. The Zerlendi External Section of the Marius Nasta Institute of Pneumophthisiology in Bucharest is also on the list of 21, which operated in a 130-year-old building with seismic risk level I and which was closed in July 2020 for safety reasons.

However, how long does it really take to actually start building a hospital with PNRR funds, and how many steps need to be taken to get there?

The Marius Nast Institute has signed a contract to finance the reconstruction from scratch, with funds from the PNRR, Zerlandi branch, but the actual start of construction still has to wait, because, as with all hospitals that have won funding from the PNRR, the bureaucracy is thick and the procedures and laws are very are strict and must be strictly followed, he explains, in one interview for HotNews.rodoctor. Beatrice Mahlerhead of the hospital.

The exterior of Zerland will be demolished and rebuilt from scratch with PNRR funds. The most modern tuberculosis treatment center in Romania will be located here

The Zerland branch at Marius Nasta will be demolished and completely rebuilt for a modern tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment center. But when will the new center be ready and, most importantly, when will its reconstruction begin? Although the financing agreement has been signed, the actual start of construction will take longer, explains Beatrice Mahler for HotNews.ro.

“Of course, I would like everything to happen much faster, but the bureaucratic part before the very beginning of the work is very thick,” admits Beatrice Mahler.

Beatrice Mahler, pulmonologist and head of the Marius Nast Institute / Photo: Agerpres

At what stage is the Marius Nast Institute currently in relation to the Zerlandi plot reconstruction project? “At the moment, we are in contact with the Ministry of Health regarding the composition of the project team and are starting to conduct the first tenders to obtain services that will help us finalize the specification to raise the tender – because being a construction work, the Marius Nast Institute has a somewhat limited administrative department . We are currently trying to complete this stage as well, because we want to submit a tender to the PSEAP and start work by the end of the year. We do the bureaucratic part, which is extremely boring, but necessary, because any public institution is public property. So far, we have sent documents to the Ministry of Health with a request to demolish the existing buildings in Zerland,” says Beatrice Mahler.

It is also necessary to adopt a Government resolution to allow the demolition of these buildings: “We are talking about state property and there must be an extremely careful outline of all these buildings. Even if they are very old, this is what is required by law and we must follow all the legal steps,” explains Beatrice Mahler.

When can the actual construction of the new Zerlendi begin?

The Marius Nast Institute has also partnered with the City Hall of Sector 4 to “support us in our efforts to complete all these works on time, because as Zerlandi is within the radius of Sector 4, it is extremely important to have the support of the City Hall, even though the Marius Nast Institute is under the Ministry of Health. And I can say that we were very happy with the support that the Marius Nasta Institute received from the entire team of the City Hall of Sector 4 and Mr. Mayor Daniel Beluce.”

The support of the City Hall of the sector was extremely welcome because, as Beatrice Mahler explains, it is a job that, in addition to the concrete construction, includes “a lot of documents, a lot of approvals, building permits, town planning, environmental permits and all this is impossible if there is not a well-established inter-institutional cooperation . So, until this moment, everything is developing in a good direction. Of course, it’s not easy, but we’re glad to have received this funding and we’re taking steps to stay on schedule.”

In view of the very busy procedure, I asked Beatrice Mahler if she has an approximate time frame when the construction of the new site of the Zerland hospital can actually start: “Only after we have completed the tender, I will be able to name the time frame. We are currently working on the specifications, we have started working on the specifications, we are updating the feasibility study on pricing. We are not sitting around, we are doing several stages in parallel to start demolition, make documents on economic and financial indicators, indicators that are an integral part of the technical specifications, and organize a project group. We are also waiting for a response from the Ministry of Health.”

The external Zerland section of the Marius Nast Institute, closed 3 years ago for security reasons, will be rebuilt from scratch with PNRR money / Photo: HotNews.ro

The Zerlandi Building, donated 130 years ago by the philanthropist Christofi Zerlandi to the Romanian state to house an asylum for the disabled

The Marius Nasta Institute operates in two premises. One of them, the one in Calea Șerban Vodă, known as Zerlendi, operated in an approximately 130-year-old building with a first-degree seismic risk. In July 2020, the Zerlendi branch of the hospital was closed for safety reasons.

The unit had 140 beds, and representatives of the Marius Nasta Institute said at the time that additional efforts would be made to ensure that the lack of beds caused by the closure would have as little impact on the treatment of respiratory patients as possible.

About 130 years ago, the banker and philanthropist Christofi Zerlendi donated the building where the Zerlendi headquarters worked to the Marius Nast Institute to house a shelter for the disabled. Later, the outer ward of the most important pulmonary hospital in Romania worked here for decades.

The new headquarters building, now known as Zerlandi, would have 6 floors. 3 years ago, when Zerlendi was closed, Beatrice Mahler hoped that the new hospital building would be ready in 4 years.

The Marius Nasta Institute receives the most serious cases of lung diseases from all over the country – lung cancer, tuberculosis or cystic fibrosis. If patients from all over the country are looking for doctors here, then the conditions of living in the hospital are significantly inferior to the quality of the offered medical certificate, the employees of the institute complain.

The Zerlandi building, built more than 100 years ago, met the standards of that time, but it can no longer meet the current ones and ensure the correct work patterns of the hospital – the corridors and stairs are very narrow, the halls are very large and do not allow isolating patients and preventing the spread of infections, there is no elevator.

In 2019, head Beatrice Mahler began to address the Ministry of Health, in which she drew attention to the high degree of wear and tear of the Zerlendi hospital building and demanded its consolidation. However, the Ministry of Health came to the conclusion that a new building can be built from scratch, rather than expanding the more than 100-year-old one, and it will cost the same.

When can hospitals that receive money from the PNRR be ready? What Alexander Rafila says

When can hospitals that have received funding from the National Plan for Recovery and Resilience (PNRR) be ready?

“I wish that the second part of 2026 will find us with all these goals achieved. Of course, success largely depends on the applicant,” said Health Minister Alexandru Rafila in March this year.

Some of these projects are already in the advanced procedure and in those cases where the construction has already started, the money will mostly be returned from the PNRR, Rafila also clarified.

Recently, 6 targets were removed from the list of 27 hospitals, leaving only 21 hospitals with grant funding from the PNRR. However, the Minister of Health, Alexandru Rafila, assured that 6 hospitals, excluded from the list of non-refundable funding from the PNRR, will continue the projects, but with funds borrowed from the European Investment Bank.

The Ministry of Health motivated this by the fact that the 6 hospitals excluded from the PNRR list had long project delays.

Alexandru Rafila, Minister of Health / Photo: Inquam Photos – Octav Ganea

The final list of 21 hospitals in Romania receiving funding through the PNRR:

• 1. Construction of a cardiovascular surgery center at the Institute of Emergency Cardiovascular Diseases and Transplantation in Tirgu Mures.

• 2. Construction of wards in hospital #1. 2 from Vaslui.

• 3. Bystrytsky District Emergency Hospital – expansion of the hospital pavilion by building a new building.

• 4. Completion of the design and implementation of the Bacau Municipal Pavilion and its integration into the medical complex of the Bacau County Emergency Hospital.

• 5. Giurgiu District Emergency Hospital – a new first-line hospital (oncology and neurological department).

• 6. Construction of the new headquarters of the emergency hospital of Piatra Neamts district, Neamts district, with innovative functions and technologies for climate protection and digitization.

• 7. Construction and equipment of the building of infectious and pneumological departments, Oradea.

• 8. Hospital construction and related functions for Dr. Theodor Andrei Municipal Hospital in Lugozh.

• 9. Timisoara Regional Institute of Oncology.

• 10. New construction: Institute of Emergency Cardiovascular Diseases prof. Dr. CC Iliescu, Bucharest.

• 11. Hospital “Prof. Dr. Agrippa Ionescu” Balotești – infrastructure modernization.

• 12. Extension of wings A1, A4 of the Bucharest University Emergency Hospital with P+6E altitude regime, external parking.

• 13. Recompartmentalization of the existing building and expansion with a new building – the clinical department of neurosurgery – the center of cerebrovascular pathology and neurosurgery in the Emergency Clinical Hospital of the Cluj district.

• 14. Construction of a new pavilion of the polytrauma surgical unit in barracks 1044 Sibiu.

• 15. Investment works and interventions in barracks 705, Pitesti.

• 16. Pavilion of operative medicine-polytrauma in barracks 1053 Kraiova.

• 17. Municipal polyclinic, specialization of cardiology and oncology, Constanta – new hospital.

• 18. Radiotherapy Laboratory Pitesti Regional Emergency Hospital.

• 19. Construction of a new pavilion for operational polytrauma D=P=4E, access road and networks in barracks 646, Brasov.

• 20. Center for diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis Zerlandi (Institute of pneumophtisiology of Marius Nasta), Bucharest – a new hospital.

• 21. Construction of a pediatric psychiatric center in the clinical psychiatric hospital of Prof. Dr. Alexandru Obregia, Bucharest.

The list of 6 hospitals excluded from PNRR financing, where investments will be made with funds borrowed from the European Investment Bank:

• 1. Construction, equipment and arrangement of Buftya obstetrics and gynecology hospital and dismantling of existing buildings (C1-C15), transfer of oxygen station and transfer of water management.

• 2. Construction of a new building – Maternal and Child Health Care Department of the St. Apostol Andrii Konstanzi County Emergency Clinical Hospital.

• 3. Construction of a new department of obstetrics and gynecology – Arad.

• 4. Construction of an emergency hospital named after prof. Dr. Dimitrie Gerota in a new place.

• 5. Construction of the Brasov Clinical Hospital for Pneumophthisia and Infectious Diseases

• 6. Alba Iulia District Emergency Hospital – active relocation and modernization.

Read also:

• Romania loses almost a third of non-refundable funds from the PNRR for the construction of hospitals. Projects are moving, but with borrowed funds. List of affected hospitals

• How the 130-year-old headquarters of the Marius Nast hospital in Zerland, closed by Beatrice Mahler for security reasons, has been waiting 2 years for a response from the authorities to rebuild it