Thursday: the Giulesti enquiry continues

I awoke this morning to the tragic news of a fifth baby victim. The father, Mr Dragomirescu, told Romania Libera that he had been informed in error yesterday that his baby had died. Today, however, he and his wife did indeed lose their child due to massive trauma from the 70-80% burns on its tiny body. The Dragomirescus say they will sue those guilty for their loss and the "mess" at Giulesti. Mr Dragomirescu told how he had paid spaga to all the medical assistants on ITU every time he or his family had wanted to visit his child - and amongst those paid was Florentina Cârstea, assistant chief on ITU and the 'nurse' who had been on duty the night of the fire. He explained how he had also been forced to buy medical materials for his wife and premature baby, for nothing was available...

Evz.ro reports on the deficit of tens of thousands of jobs in Roumania within the health care field and of those, at least 3000 are medical positions. Hospitals have asked repeatedly for replacement staff from the ministery of health....and the demands have gone ignored. The tragedy at Giulesti has highlighted the heinous indifference and incompetence of the Minister of Health, Attila Cseke, for there (as a prime example) on an intensive care unit of high dependency was one member of staff when there should have been four. All vacated jobs within the health service (says Romania Libera) have been frozen, ie. left unfilled. As nurses and health workers find better paid positions abroad, they are not replaced. Money saving. Penny pinching. Economising at the risk of innocent bundles such as those victims of the fire at Giulesti caused by pure and unadulterated negligence.

The Order of Medical Assistants state that tens of thousands of jobs are frozen in the medical field. A representative of Giulesti states that they made numerous demands for the right to hire but never got a single reply from the Minister of Health, Attila Cseke nor his staff. Applications for new jobs should have been passed from the ministry of health to the labour and finance ministries, but they remained blocked in the offices of health. True, Cseke took a difficult post in an already disastrous health care system situation but he has done nothing whatsoever to alleviate the conditions for staff and patients alike since he arrived in December 2009, nothing but let the repetitive demands sit there on the desk for months rather than pass them on. Imposing taxes on salty and sugary foods was admittedly a good idea but certainly not a priority. Attila Cseke...everything comes back to him...

Right now, the Roumanian health-care system is working with less than 50,000 doctors and 13,000 care workers. "We have 1.9 physicians for every 1,000 people," says the President of the Roumanian College of Physicians, Professor Vasile Astarastoae in today's Evenimentul Zilei. "The European standard is 3.6 physicians per 1,000 people - we need double the number of doctors we have today."

For medical assistants, the deficit is even greater. "We need tens of thousands of positions filled over the whole country just to ensure Accident and Emergency," says Gheorghe Radulescu, President of the Order of Medical Assistants and Midwives.

As I write, the ministry of labour is yet to receive a single demand from the ministry of health regarding the hiring of more medical assistants for Giulesti maternity hospital, despite repeated calls for positions to be filled (last one was Feb. 2009 and recalled in march this year). Those in the ministry of finance say they haven't received any memorandums for additional staff either. Again, everything is thrown back to Attila Cseke who has done preceisely NOTHING during his term as Minister of Health to improve safety regulations on the floors of hospitals all over Roumania.

Not only is there call for the resignation of Attila Cseke, but that of the Mayor of Bucharest, Sorin Oprescu, too. He was apparently well aware of the problems concerning the electricity network on the ITU at Giulesti, both as Mayor and as a previous minister of health. It turns out then, that this is an old issue that has been repeatedly and exhaustively placed on the desk of the health minister... and yet to no avail.

We await the DA to finish investigations, but the collateral damage is both physically, emotionally and morally immense. Personal stories, heart breaking witness statements pour out of the press headlines today. Brave firemen broke windows to get to the babies - but too late for they had already burnt in the locked room or died of asphyxiation and oxygen deprivation where they had been left by Florentina Cârstea on a table unsupervised for at least 40-45 minutes.

Let's talk about Florentina Cârstea. I was beginning to feel rather sorry for the lonesome nurse on a high dependancy unit. No longer. I was wasting my sympathy. Adevarul reports today that she locked up the ward and left for 40-45 minutes leaving the 11 premature new-borns who were in her soul care. She originally told investigators that she had gone to the bathroom for a few minutes. Duration of her far longer absence was established through the examination of video cameras installed in the corridors - a ridiculous set-up when you consider that there was close circuit TV but NO smoke alarms, NO fire extinguishers and NO emergency sprinklers...

A specialist in the investigation said that for the babies room to be as badly burnt as it was, the fire would have to have burnt for at least 30 minutes. Florentina Cârstea didn't even know the number of babies in her care. She was the Assistant Chief of ITU. She was in a position of reponsibility. But she locked the door to the eleven babies leaving three on a table (one of them Madalina Arcudeanu's baby girl suffering from jaundice) and vanished for about three quarters of an hour. Where? To do what? If she was in the bathroom, then she must have been reading a marvellously gripping novel or wishing for a dose of senna... Cseke Attila said this morning that the understaffing was not the cause of the tragedy. Think again, Mr Cseke. Had the assistant chief been where she should have been, the fire would have been detected at its onset and we would not be where we are today burying 5 new-borns and praying for the now six survivors so severely burnt that DNA has been required to identify them. It is on the shoulders of Attila Cseke and Bogdan Marinescu the ward director, and I do not know how they sleep at night with such indifference...

And where is Bogdan Marinescu in all this? Well, for now he has been temporarily dismissed and replaced by another incompetent,  Victoria Nicolau, implicated in a controvertial case of malpractice in 2007 involving Natalia Ionescu, a 40 year old mother who spent 12h in agonising labour with great blood loss before a c-section was performed whereupon she lost more blood. In the absence of a much-needed blood transfusion, Ms Ionescu died... voilà, the new 'stand in' for Marinescu. A comfort to us all, I am sure.

The great public career of Bogdan Marinescu, says Adevarul, has gone hand in hand with his own businesses. According to his declaration of wealth, he is a shareholder in Lira Cabinet Medical Obstetrica si Ginecologie and also owner of the Marinescu Medical Centre founded in 2003. Last year, it had a revenue of 60,000 euros and made a 50,000 euro profit. Fishy, to say the least. He had a second office together with...surprise, surprise... Mirela Ranga, the Giulesti medical director (under whom are all assistants and heads of departments amongst them Florentina Cârstea. Small world), but this has ceased to exist temporarily.

The investigations continue today and have so far confirmed what we already knew - a wholely botched improvised installation of the air conditioning system on Giulesti's ITU...old, clapped out, oversolicited and the kind that is normally used in appartments, not demanding networks such as a hospital. It was not installed by the usual company Tenex who has been responsible for the rest of the hospital. The culprit for such an unprofessional job is still unknown - and no maintenance contract was ever signed. Who inspected the equipment and considered it adequate on July 20th - mark of interrogation there too. But one thing is clear. As little money as possible was spent on the ITU a/c system despite the risk to human lives on a unit with such dire need for security and safety.

As stories come in, both from the media and from witness statements, I read or listen as they are translated for me in rage and disbelief. Attila Cseke remains behind his desk (refusing to quit) in his big leather chair, bombastic, arrogant and uncaring repeating that these accidents also happen in other countries. "Google it!" he retorted to a journalist at a press conference. The journalist did so and could only come up with India.

This 37 year old minister, too young and arrogant to see he has made some massive blunders and is floundering dangerously in a quagmire got this post because, says journalist Constantin Racaru, the UDMR couldn't come up with anyone better than a notary. He has no idea how to manage in the medical field for he has zero experience. Does he care? If he did, he would resign. It wouldn't be the answer to the vast and nationally crippling problem, but it would be a sure beginning.

Comments

[carmen]

I am ashamed. Ashamed of our goverment, ashamed of our President, ashamed of our health system and our justice, ashamed of my country. Attila is a heartless, cold monster who isn't expressing any sympathy to what happened at Giulesti, hasn't said he is responsible in any kind of way and continue to stay in his ploace as minister when he is not right to be there. He is like all of our ministers. lazy, insensitive, useless. they do nothing and have salary that we cant imagine. He is responsible for 5 babies burnt and dead, the loss of the families, the pain of the 6 babies at GA hospital.
I am too ashamed that a person who is not romanian writes this things with love and friendness for us. She tells us fact and feels everything here more than our government. How can you love a country that lets there babys burnt to death, Sarah? We are also responsible because we do nothing to change anything. We are all tired and know that we cant do nothing. I remember when you are living here you went on protest at pta Rev for the houses you say 'cry'. I admired so much and was ashame I did not come with you. We are a nation of useless people. Mioritza. You know the story. Things will not never change for us. We are without power because corruption is bigger and stronger than we are. that is why the babys died...ashamed....I am.