Safety Harbor firm wins bid to renovate Bulgaria hospital
First Global Health Corp. will start work on the 700-bed facility in Haskovo early next year.
By MEGAN SCOTT
Published October 7, 2003
SAFETY HARBOR - It was built in the early 1990s but never finished.
Now a Safety Harbor company has won the right to travel to Bulgaria to complete the hospital in Haskovo, an area with about 500,000 people in the southeastern part of the country that closely borders Greece and Turkey.
First Global Health Corp. on Main Street has signed a $70-million contract to renovate the hospital, which will be named the American-European Hospital of Haskovo.
"It's really exciting," said Ralph Frasco, president and CEO of First Global Health. "We're giving them an efficient center and we're increasing the quality of their care. It's going to be much less expensive and less cumbersome."
Construction on the 700-bed hospital is scheduled to start the first quarter of 2004 and the building should open later that year. Once opened, the company will turn six hospitals in Haskovo into diagnostic centers and clinics. One will become a nursing home.
The hospital in Haskovo was originally built by the Communist government but construction stopped after the government fell and it never opened. It remains empty inside. First Global Health is going to do the interior work.
First Global Health was formed in February with Frasco, Richard Chiarelli, the director, and Nedelcho Peneff, a former ambassador to Bulgaria. Peneff, the company's European president, is based in Sofia, Bulgaria.
So far, the company has contracts to build or renovate hospitals in Hungary, Ukraine, Romania and Russia and is planning to open regional offices throughout eastern Europe. Many of those countries must make changes to their health care systems as a requirement for admission to the European Union.
Most of the reforms are related to the enhancement of the operation and emergency rooms, the number of nurses and doctors for each patient and the entire operation of the hospital.
"All central and eastern European candidate countries that have made application for the accession to the European Union are now facing health care assessment and reform challenges essential to membership," Peneff said.
Haskovo considered several contracts from other countries before settling on First Global Health. Mayor Georgi Ivanov said the deciding factor was the company's "long-term commitment to project success and scientifically advanced medical equipment and technology."
First Global Health will run the hospital in Haskovo for 12 years.
The health care system in Bulgaria has been neglected since the 1970s, said Frasco. The country has been servicing a rapidly aging population. But the doctors there are excellent, he said.
"They just don't have the tools to do the job," he said. "We're going to provide them with tools and additional technology. They are absolutely thrilled to have American technology and American training."
