News

Prague’s Vinohrady hospital has reached an out-of-court settlement with the family of a boy who suffered a serious brain injury during birth at the hospital in 2009. The facility has agreed to pay some 20 million crowns, or around one million US dollars, to the family, the hospital’s director told the news agency ČTK. It is the highest amount ever paid in compensation by a Czech health facility. Doctors at the hospital faced accusations of malpractice after they ignored signs pointing to a complicated delivery. The boy was born blind and deaf and requires continuous care. In June, a court in Prague ordered the hospital to pay 30 million crowns in compensation in a ground-breaking verdict which the hospital said it would appeal.

The Czech Transport Ministry has called for bids for the production of vehicle registration plates. For the past 13 years, the Brno-based firm Hicon has been the exclusive supplier of registration plates for the ministry. Transport Minister Antonín Prachař has criticized the system, and complained that the authorities had not been able to open the deal to other bidders. The state annually pays around 240 million crowns for some 1.4 million registration plates. However, the ministry is planning to overhaul the system so that in 2016, vehicle owners would buy the plates from one of several licensed producers.

The district of Prague 1 is not happy with a network of Tesco-owned Žabka convenience stores located in buildings owned by the municipality,, the district’s mayor, Oldřich Lomecký, told a news conference on Wednesday. Mr Lomecký said the local town hall was dissatisfied with the stores’ standards, the choice of available products and their quality; as a result, the authorities will cancel a rental contract with one of the stores, and would like to discuss the issue with Tesco management. If the situation does not improve by the end of the year, the municipality will consider renting the facilities to other firms, according to the mayor. Tesco acquired the nation-wide network of 135 Žabka convenience stores in 2011.

The lower house of the Czech Parliament on Wednesday began debating a civil service bill. The legislation, put forth by the centre-left Czech government, should overhaul the rules for the employment of public servants. A similar act was adopted by Czech lawmakers in 2002 as a prerequisite for the country’s accession to the European Union but it has never entered into force. The current bill has come under criticism from the opposition which says the legislation will make it impossible to fire officials nominated by the coalition parties; however, the government claims the European Commission will halt subsidies for the Czech Republic if the bill is not approved.