A telling story from today's Independent, by Alison Mutler, the AP woman here, about bribery in Romanian hospitals.
Dr Catalin Cirstoveanu runs a cardio unit with state-of-the-art equipment at a Bucharest children's hospital. But not a single child has been treated in the year and a half since it opened. The reason? Medical staff he needs to bring in to run the machinery would have expected bribes.
So Dr Cirstoveanu has launched a lonely crusade to save babies who come to him for care. He flies them to Western Europe on budget flights so they can be treated by doctors who don't demand kickbacks. That's what he did last week for 13-day-old Catalin, who needed heart surgery. Dr Cirstoveanu packed a small bag, slipped emergency breathing equipment into the baby carrier and caught a cheap flight to Italy, where doctors were waiting to perform the surgery.
Dr Catalin Cirstoveanu runs a cardio unit with state-of-the-art equipment at a Bucharest children's hospital. But not a single child has been treated in the year and a half since it opened. The reason? Medical staff he needs to bring in to run the machinery would have expected bribes.
So Dr Cirstoveanu has launched a lonely crusade to save babies who come to him for care. He flies them to Western Europe on budget flights so they can be treated by doctors who don't demand kickbacks. That's what he did last week for 13-day-old Catalin, who needed heart surgery. Dr Cirstoveanu packed a small bag, slipped emergency breathing equipment into the baby carrier and caught a cheap flight to Italy, where doctors were waiting to perform the surgery.
Incredible! and this is not all. Babies are feeded with the water from boiled rice instead of milk in orphanage houses when they miss budget to buy the necessary food or milk. Also they are children who didn't went out since they are born because the same institutions don't have clothing and shoes to take the babies out....it is incredible. Incredible in a country who has good natural conditions, there is no desert here, we have water, we have 4 seasons....this earth can feed us ...but we simply don't have enough responsability.
ReplyDeleteThis is not only terribly sad, but the human face of what might best be described as an "anarchical society". As I have written previously, you can often judge a society by how it cares for children and old people. It is time for a moral wake up, where we can all benefit more than just the great I.
ReplyDeleteAndy
Is the government doing anything about this?
ReplyDeleteNo The goverment protect them. Because the corruption is organize so organize crime network arragnes. This is very sad for a acountry thats member of union.
ReplyDelete