Five Billion, Three Years and a Bribery Case: the Oncology Centre at Motol Opens

The National Oncology Centre opened at Motol University Hospital and Na Homolce on 9 September, at a final cost of CZK 4.96 billion. Most of that was EU money, drawn through the National Recovery Plan. ČTK reported the opening, carried by archiweb.

The building is not new in the ordinary sense. It is a reconstruction of an existing block plus a new extension, joined into a single medical complex around a central atrium with enclosed galleries and linked departments. Inside are imaging suites — MRI, CT, mammography and screening — and an endoscopy centre. Archiweb records the design to DOMY s.r.o., with Jan Topinka, Michal Juha and Jakub Skočdopole.

The number that matters most is not the cost but the capacity: at full operation across all departments, oncology care at the hospital rises by 40 percent. Hospital spokeswoman Martina Dostálová told ČTK that departments have been opening to patients gradually since roughly the middle of August, and that some will start work in October. The ribbon on 9 September was therefore the midpoint of the opening rather than its beginning.

What the money was, and where it nearly went

The Ministry of Health's own subsidy was CZK 777.4 million; the hospital paid the remainder from its own resources on top of the recovery-plan money. Czechia applied at the end of August for reimbursement of the last tranche of the National Recovery Plan, CZK 23.6 billion of the nearly CZK 215 billion drawn since 2021.

Podařilo se nám projekt stabilizovat, zkrátit zpoždění o pět měsíců a odvrátit hrozbu ztráty dotačních prostředků ve výši více než čtyři miliardy korun.

— Petr Polouček, director, Motol University Hospital

That is the sentence the deadline explains. Recovery-plan money has to be spent by a date, and a building that misses the date does not merely open late — it opens without four billion crowns behind it. Health minister Adam Vojtěch (for ANO) called the centre "one of the most significant investments in Czech healthcare in recent years," and said its concrete result would be a faster path from a suspected tumour to a diagnosis and treatment.

Prime minister Andrej Babiš (ANO) used the opening to say the money had been meant for somewhere else:

Peníze, které jsem vyjednal, měly skončit v nejmodernější onkologické nemocnici na Vinohradech. Na tom místě to nevzniklo, protože to někdo chtěl tady.

— Andrej Babiš, prime minister

He also set out the case for the spending: cancer is currently the second most common cause of death and by 2030 will probably be the first, and Czechia is third worst in the world for pancreatic cancer mortality, with poor figures for kidney and colorectal cancer and leukaemias. Between 2021 and 2027, he said, EU money supported 108 healthcare facilities. Monika Ladmanová, head of the European Commission's representation in Czechia, put EU spending on Czech healthcare over the past decade at CZK 32 billion.

The two things that happened to the building on the way

The hospital's leadership changed during construction because of a corruption case. Investigators say the former director of Motol, Miloslav Ludvík, and his deputy Pavel Budinský took bribes from suppliers — not only for construction contracts but for cleaning services and trades work. No indictment has yet been filed. Asked by ČTK, Vojtěch said there were no signals the criminal case would affect reimbursement of the subsidies paid so far from the state budget.

Ludvík wrote on X on Tuesday that when he left the job the works were two months behind:

Když jsem končil, bylo zpoždění dva měsíce, v soutěži se nikdo neodvolal, takže se stihl pro otevření šibeniční termín 36 měsíců včetně získání stavebního povolení.

— Miloslav Ludvík, former director, Motol University Hospital

The second thing was a fire. A week before the opening, the cladding of the new centre burned and 18 patients had to be evacuated. Damage was estimated at around CZK 30 million; the hospital says operations were unaffected.

One figure is worth setting beside another. Archiweb's own report from October 2023, when construction began, described the project as the Czech Oncology Institute at CZK 4.5 billion. It has opened as the National Oncology Centre at CZK 4.96 billion — a different name and roughly half a billion crowns more, across three years that also contained a change of management, a bribery investigation and a fire. For a building on a recovery-plan clock, that is close to the best available outcome, which is a statement about the clock as much as about the building.

Motol is the country's largest hospital: more than 2,200 beds and 6,700 staff, with almost 80,000 people admitted last year. Na Homolce, the other half of the new centre, has nearly 400 beds and over 1,700 staff.