Romania’s health minister resigns amid hospital disinfectants scandal
Romania’s health minister resigns amid hospital disinfectants scandal
Romania’s health minister Patriciu Achimas-Cadariu decided to resign on Monday, May 9, after a talk with Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos.
Achimas-Cadariu took this decision because he didn’t agree with the way the Government decided to manage the hospital disinfectants crisis, according to governmental sources cited by local Mediafax.
Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos accepted his resignation, and announced he would coordinate the Health Ministry’s activity himself, until this crisis is solved, the Government announced. President Klaus Iohannis accepted the Prime Minister’s solution.
Ciolos established a work group to elaborate a tactical plan for the healthcare system, which includes specialists from the public healhcare system, researchers, professors, experts and consultants. The group’s task is to elaborate short and medium term measures to increase the safety in the public medical sector and to come up with strategic reform proposals.
An investigation conducted by a group of journalists from sports newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor revealed in early May that hundreds of hospitals in Romania have been purchasing overpriced highly diluted disinfectants from a local firm for years, putting the patients’ safety at risk.
The disinfectants sold by local company Hexi Farma were found to have concentrations up to ten times lower compared to those mentioned on the labels. Thus, they were more ineffective in killing germs and were posing infection risks for patients treated in the hospitals that used them.
Health minister Patriciu Achimas-Cadariu announced soon after that less than 5% of the samples taken from public healthcare units in Romania to check the efficiency of the disinfectants have come out nonconforming.
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