Romanian Doctors Petition to Treat Non-COVID-19 Patients Again

Romanian doctors, nurses and other employees from one of the biggest hospitals in Bucharest signed a petition to be let to offer medical treatment to non-Covid-19 patients again.

The doctors, all from Colentina Hospital, one of the hospitals locked for non-Covid-19 patients, are desperate for not being able to fulfill their social duty, meaning saving patients’ lives. They say that, before the lockdown measures, their hospital treated around 20,000 patients each month. Now, the whole medical unit is offering medical treatment to no more than 100 COVID-19 patients, most of them without specific symptoms.

The petition is signed by 300 persons – doctors, nurses and other employees.

The situation in Romania is controversial. The Romanian Government was recently accused by the Opposition for hiding the real number of COVID-19 test results and use the numbers only to justify the decision of keeping the social restrictions and maintaining the alert state on Romanian territory. The alert state allows the Government to continue purchasing medical devices or sanitary masks without respecting the tender procedures required in normal circumstances.

There was a case which is now investigated by the Romanian anti-corruption prosecutors where millions of sanitary masks were purchased by the Government directly through a pub in a Southern village. Thus, a non-medical company, which runs a pub, was used by people close to the Governing party to fulfill a medical contract. The masks were immediately purchased the Government at much higher prices and there is information that the money were paid in advance by the Government so the masks could be bought by the pub whose turnover didn’t let it have millions of Euros necessary for that specific transaction.

On top of that, Romanian authorities representatives asked publicly not to be investigated for the purchases they made during the lockdown situation in Romania. Still, the Romanian Anticorruption Directorate is investigating some of the acquisitions, but offered no details so far.

This is the professional, the social and the political climate which led to the Bucharest doctor’s petition. Beyond everything else, it leads to a sad conclusion: the way the Romanian authorities proceeded in locking certain hospitals altogether, waiting for COVID-19 patients, clearly endanger the lives of many Romanian patients who are not suffering from COVID-19.