KH Nord: Wehsely rejects any responsibility

Sonja Wehsely (SPÖ), former health advisor, stressed Tuesday that she was not responsible for the operational decisions regarding the construction of the North KH Vienna. Wehsely has been invited to testify at the European Commission.

The interrogation of the former councilor began Tuesday afternoon with great interest for the media. Wehsely defended the hospital from reporters before the start of the investigation commission. "The Northern Hospital is a world-clbad hospital in terms of medical care and patient care," she said.

According to the construction project, "one must learn to position oneself early and better prepare to be able to better withstand the construction industry and the industry," Wehsely said. "This is not automatically the case for large-scale construction projects as the construction industry and the industry are friends of the public sector."

"No doubt about the control of the manufacturer KAV"

In the survey itself, Wehsely said: "Operational responsibility does not rest with the advisor, but a direction is used and paid for it." When asked what the role of the client of the Hospital Association (KAV) was, she had no reason to doubt that the project organization was well positioned.

The internal audit of KAV as well as the general manager of the then, Wilhelm Marhold, and the control office have repeatedly confirmed that "the way the project was set up was good, correct and effective". "Of course, I have the blame for selection for executives," she admitted. However, the Director General was responsible for setting up the project organization.

The interrogation of Wehselys should take several hours. Thereafter, Regina Prehofer is invited to testify. She was until end 2016 Vice President of the Supervisory Board of the Hospital Association.

North KH: 1.34 billion euros instead of 825 million euros

For ten years, from 2007 to 2017, Wehsely was a municipal councilor responsible for the large-scale project. Under her direction, she notably decided that the city would not build the new Vienna hospital with the bidder consortium consisting of Porr, Siemens and Vamed, but that the badociation of municipal hospitals would badume the role itself. of constructor. However, the lack of know-how to do this was lacking, criticized the Court of Auditors in its spring report.

In addition, the cost of the large Wehselys construction site has increased significantly and the opening has been delayed. In the current perspective, the hospital costs 1.34 billion euros, originally estimated at 825 million euros. According to forecasts, the hospital should already be fully operational in 2016. According to the current state of affairs, this should be the case in the autumn of 2019.

Wehsely defended the approach that the KAV itself badumed the role of builder on the large construction site. When asked why she had subscribed to this decision, which was later strongly criticized by the Court of Auditors, she replied: "I would say, given my current knowledge, that it is necessary to strengthen the internal know-how.This was not predictable with my knowledge at the time. "

Submission before term

No error has been made regarding the award and selection of the Northern Hospital site. Although the way the call for bids was advertised was "unusual", it was "workable" according to a report from a legal expert, Wehsely told the Inquiry Committee . Doubt it was correct to give the bidder who, in addition to the acquisition of the construction function also has a corresponding land, they had come up in 2010 when they read the report of the office control. In addition, the tendering procedure would have taken place before his mandate in 2006.

Regarding the choice of property, she was always satisfied: "I still think this property is the right one." The only "political issue and responsibility" lay in the decision to build the Floridsdorf Hospital, as the city grew strongly in this district. Wehsely pointed out that he had no political influence on the selection process of the property and on the architectural competition.

Several reasons for the interruption of negotiations with Porr

The fact that the negotiations with the Porr-Vamed-Siemens bid consortium were completed in 2010 was decided on the proposal of the then KAV Director General Wilhelm Marhold and his Deputy Maximilian Koblmüller. According to Mr. Wehsely, in addition to the proposal of the two managers, the inspection report, an intervention of the lender – the European Investment Bank – and the lack of agreement on a price with the consortium led to the closure of the negotiations.

In addition, Marhold and Koblmüller had always told him that "everything is fine" during the construction of the hospital. This is also true at the end of 2013, when Marhold – just before unexpectedly announcing its withdrawal for health reasons – informed him by e-mail that the construction site was meeting the deadlines and the schedule. budget. A few days later, however, a letter from the construction companies was received: "Everything is wrong," said Wehsely. In January, the facade company went bankrupt, resulting in significant additional costs.

"The most unfavorable scenarios" not communicated

Opposition critics that she was already aware of the impending additional costs of building a hospital before the 2015 local elections, without having revealed it, rejected it. In June 2015, she informed the local council of a cost overrun of ten percent. "I've never told the lie," said Wehsely. She did not disclose the "worst case scenarios" as this would have "greatly aggravated" the city's bargaining position.

The relationship with Siemens during her activity as a city councilor was also discussed in the survey: "During my tenure as city councilor, I did not influence any awards in any area whatsoever. never given any advantages to Siemens, "said Wehsely, who left the city's policy to join Siemens Healthcare GmbH in Germany.

Reviews of Wehsely also by the former director general of KAV

Former KAV Director General Udo Janssen was criticized three weeks ago for testifying before the committee. The director of the German hospital, who led the KAV from November 2014 until the spring of 2017, complained that the political influence exerted on the management of the KAV under Wehsely had been very strong, which had detracted from "reasonable management" – more information about it in North KH: Janßen saw "deficits".

SPÖ wants to communicate facts on its own website

"There has been a lot of talk about the North Hospital, some are true, some are half-truths and others are so false that it's more in a storybook", with this introduction, visitors are welcome to the new website, where members of the SPÖ of the Inquiry Committee at the North Hospital clarify facts or myths. The site has been online since Monday afternoon, as reported by the free newspaper Today.

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