In Brno, construction of the ICRC will begin, the city council confirmed the building permit

Brno - The Brno St. Anne's Hospital will begin construction of the International Center for Clinical Research (ICRC) in a few weeks. The construction of the center, costing five billion crowns, has so far been hindered by residents of the neighboring Anenská Street. They appealed against the building permit. The municipality, as the appellate authority, confirmed the building permit, according to the decision published on the official notice board. Construction will start as soon as the decision becomes legally valid after the fifteen-day period, said hospital spokeswoman Šárka Urbánková today to ČTK.
    Six residents of Anenská Street appealed against the building permit. They were concerned about increased traffic during the construction, limited parking options, and noise. The municipality only partially accommodated their concerns. In the decision on the appeal, it stipulated that the hospital must apply for a temporary operation permit before the final inspection. The evaluation of the results must then be attached to the request for the final inspection. Otherwise, the authority confirmed the building permit.
    The ICRC is to be built by the company OHL ŽS, which won the tender with a bid of 1.9 billion crowns excluding VAT. According to hospital director Petr Koška, the funding is also secure. According to Urbánková, they only need to request the release of funds from the Ministry of Health after the building permit becomes legally valid. This is expected to be a formal step.
    The costs for the construction and equipment of the ICRC are approaching five billion crowns. The hospital, as the project holder, recently succeeded among projects that are competing for European funds. Another ambitious research project, the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC) of the Brno universities and the Czech Academy of Sciences, has also received excellent evaluations. Thus, it is highly likely that both projects will be realized in Brno.
    The ICRC is expected to develop new treatment methods for about 70 percent of the diseases that currently cause the most deaths. Research plans in the treatment of heart attacks indicate the direction researchers want to advance medicine. According to doctor Tomáš Kára, medicine should not focus in the future on the consequences of complications, but rather on determining who is at risk of a heart attack. Treatment should thus be initiated before the disease manifests.
    The ICRC aims to involve Czech doctors in the forefront of medical research. Residents of Brno are already collaborating on research tasks with experts from the prestigious American Mayo Clinic. The ICRC is expected to bring modern treatment methods to patients, which would otherwise be implemented in the Czech Republic with about a two-year delay.