Rio de Janeiro state undersecretary points out illegalities and calls for cancellation of hospital contract for COVID-19 treatment
In Rio de Janeiro, the Legal Undersecretary of the State Health Department, Felipe de Melo Fonte, found illegalities in the choice of entities to be responsible for the administration of the two state hospitals that will be references in the treatment of people with Covid-19.
The request for cancellation by Fonte was made because the deadlines stipulated in the notice for the receipt of proposals were not respected.
The selection of the sites took place one day after the publication in the Official Gazette. According to the rules, the deadline for submitting the projects was two days. It was estimated that the cost of managing the units over the next six months is R$1,400,000.00. The case was revealed by journalist Ruben Berta's blog.
The dispute for the administration of the state hospitals Zilda Arns, in Volta Redonda, and Anchieta, in the capital, was won by Imaps (Association for the Protection of Maternity and Childhood of Mutuípe) and Idab (Instituto Diva Alves do Brasil).
Refutation
The undersecretary spoke out shortly after the refutation of the results of the two disputes made by the Instituto Solidário, which found irregularities. Source pointed out in his opinions that “not even the emergency context invoked authorizes the celebration of administrative contracts tainted with defects”.
“There is an irremediable defect in the selection procedure, namely: the internal contradiction in the body of the notice regarding the deadline for submitting documentation by those interested in participating in the competition, a defect pointed out, including, by the challenger in the document that gave rise to the opening of this administrative procedure”, wrote Fonte, state attorney.
According to the undersecretary, failure to comply with the notice prevented the majority of those interested in managing the hospitals from participating. The prosecutor also said in his opinion that the notice of the competition was not submitted to the Legal Undersecretary. This situation is contrary to the state decree.
The executive undersecretary Gabriell Neves was the one who coordinated the bidding process. And it was also with him that Mariana Scardua, former undersecretary of Comprehensive Health Care Management, had disagreements before being dismissed.
Scardua was in charge of the sub-department responsible for managing the state's health units, which included regulating beds, protocols on medication management, and other activities closely related to dealing with the pandemic.
The State Health Department stated that the dismissal was due to a change in the department's structure, in order to focus efforts on combating the new coronavirus.
The department did not comment on the legal undersecretary's opinion.