Romania’s care homes abuses is under debate in the European Parliament and the European Commission and regarded as a gross violation of basic human rights. EU should not allow human rights violations in any of its member states as much as it can’t afford to have one of its member states’ healthcare system crippled and in utter disarray, writes Cristian Gherasim.
As for the hospitals in Romania the situation is even worse. Old buildings, some with warning signs that in the case of earthquake they will crumble, halls with dozens of beds, operating blocks piled up and unsuitable for the medical act or walls that hide hard-to-kill infections are some of the problems of the Romanian medical system. With Romanian healthcare system, the local, county or central authorities play ping-pong every time the question of building a new hospital arises. For 32 years, Romania has managed to build only one new state building, while its hospitals are one by one on the list of endangered buildings in case of earthquake. A 2018 report showed that almost a third of the 375 hospital units in Romania have buildings on the red list of buildings that are at risk of collapsing in the event of an earthquake similar to the one in 1977.
Romania has a dangerous and often deadly healthcare system. A who just hours before was tended to at the same hospital died at home following discharge. Another bizarre case happened at a hospital in the neighboring county. In the city of Urlaţi a man was operated but inexplicably he was left in his leg with the handbrake handle of the bicycle he fell off of. Following surgery he went to the work in the Netherlands and after experiencing severe pain the doctors there found the unwanted object in his leg. These examples of poor hospital management cover just the past month.
The examples listed above barely scratch the surface of what decades for mismanagement, corruption did to the Romania healthcare system.
Romania spends only 700 euro health care expenditure per inhabitant up from 400 a few years ago, way behind top performers such as Luxembourg, Sweden and Denmark, each with 6.000 euro health expenditure per inhabitant each year. In Romania, women live, on average, 8 years longer than men (78.4 years compared to 70.5) – one of the largest gender gaps in life expectancy in the European Union.
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