News managed to get a statement from Viliam Švec, the CEO of KV Lhota s.r.o. He denies that the staff would leave the seniors or that the clients would starve.
“Food was fully provided in the facility. The clients were certainly not in need. On the contrary, most of them stayed in the facility voluntarily for a long time and were satisfied,” says Švec, adding that employees were present on site.
The home management assistant reacted similarly, denying that there was no staff in the boarding house. But the question is how qualified people were, because due to the health condition of the seniors and possible help and care for them, the paramedics stayed on the spot.
The authorities know nothing about the request
Švec claims that the ambulances and representatives of social services arrived because the management itself actively turned to the authorities for help, because it was no longer able to tighten operations due to financial reasons. “The authorities did not handle the situation as an ‘overflow evacuation’, but as a reaction to our official request for cooperation,” added the executive.
But the official statement of the Regional Office of the Central Bohemian Region says something else. The office denied that it had come to the place based on the founder’s request. The whole event was launched as a reaction to the intervention of the Police of the Czech Republic, which went to check the alleged aggressive behavior of one of the clients, who required medical treatment,” ZZS spokeswoman Monika Nováková told Novinkám.
The municipality of Kladno is also unaware of any official request. “The rescue service’s visit to the facility on Wednesday alerted our social department, and on the basis of that, our workers were dispatched to the site,” said spokesman Vít Heral.
In addition, the region confirmed that everything is not in order in the facility. “An extraordinary inspection was carried out at the company KV Lhota s.r.o. due to the suspicion of providing an unregistered residential social service, which was confirmed by the inspection,” said the spokeswoman of the region.
Even according to the Association of Social Services Providers (APSS), no registered social care provider is located in the village of Lhota.
Švec defends himself by saying that the company only provided rental accommodation and care services were provided by partner company Lotos Senior s.r.o., which had registration. Although the Office confirmed that the company is currently under proceedings to withdraw its registration, it has not yet become legally binding. The company KV Lhota s.r.o. itself never applied for registration. Running an unregistered social service carries a fine of up to 2 million crowns.
The Lhota case reopened a systemic problem. “The association, together with the public defender of rights, has been drawing attention to the issue of illegal social service providers for many years, of which there are only a few dozen in the Czech Republic,” said APSS president Jiří Horecký. He reminded that municipalities have a new legal obligation to notify the region, which has the authority to control and impose fines, if they suspect illegal services.
