Hospital Isala unknowingly rented buildings for years from five cardiologists who worked at the hospital and have recently been suspected of corruption. The cardiologists owned various buildings next to the main building of the Zwolle hospital through a concealing construction, according to research by NRC.
On their initiative, Isala departments moved to their real estate. The hospital pays 3.5 tons of rent per year for the buildings. The additional income was not known to the hospital.
The buildings are used by, among others, the Harthuis, which falls under the responsibility of the Isala Hartcentrum. The department itself requested more space. The head at the time had a private interest in the real estate and is now one of the suspects. In 2016, the hospital concluded a ten-year lease for buildings that the cardiologists had acquired just before.
The cardiologists had already turned out to have a tangle of unclear commercial and financial interests. In June, the FIOD raided five medical specialists who work or have worked at Isala. Justice suspects them of having received payments from a manufacturer of medical devices for years. NRC unveiled last month along with The Mirror that it concerns the German Biotronik, a manufacturer of pacemakers and implantable defibrillators. The OM is not commenting.
Interest sold
There appear to be more organizations that did not know that the cardiologists suspected of corruption were their landlords. Diagram BV, a company from which Zwolle cardiologists conduct scientific research, has been renting premises from the doctors since 2014. Radboudumc academic hospital in Nijmegen, which was a shareholder in Diagram, did not know this. This also applies to close colleagues who have contacted you on an anonymous basis NRC spoke.
The cardiologists recently sold their interest in the real estate. The director of Diagram represented the real estate interests of the cardiologists in a foundation for many years. She resigned that position last month because the cardiologists left. She refuses to explain. The cardiologists do not respond to contact requests.
According to a spokesman for Isala, the hospital management was informed by a medical specialist at the time that unnamed “cardiologists were involved as silent partners” in the leased property. But: “The board of directors did not know which cardiologists were involved.” The hospital has no problem with that situation as long as no “undesirable conflict of interest arises”. According to Isala, the current landlord made the best offer. Former Diagram shareholder Radboudumc says that the “rent did not raise any questions”.
Read the research story here: The cardiologists at Isala Hospital wanted to expand – and they were able to do so in their own real estate
A version of this article also appeared in the December 5, 2022 newspaper