Romania: Covid patients die in a container
Three Covid-19 patients who were being treated in a container installed outside a hospital in Bucharest have died, presumably due to a malfunction of the oxygen supply systems to which they were connected. The containers were purchased in April last year to take some of the strain off overcrowded hospitals. Commentators say the incident is just the tip of the iceberg.
No one assumes responsibility
A change in the political culture is needed if the country is to get to grips with coronavirus, the Romanian service of Deutsche Welle stresses:
“Even for the [hospital] fires that have killed patients in the past six months, no one has taken responsibility so far. ... And of course no one is to blame at Bucharest's Victor Babeș Hospital, where three patients died on Monday evening. ... While the political decision-makers point fingers at each other the WHO has announced that the number of Covid19 cases is growing exponentially. ... In the home stretch, it's time Romania understood what is needed: quarantine, clear rules, transparent explanations and people who assume responsibility when lives are at stake.”
Protect yourself from the hospitals!
The containers are just one among many problems in Romania's healthcare system, Newsweek România comments:
“The whole construction is an improvisation that's already broken down four times. It was only a matter of days or months before it would cost lives. And do you know what the most worrying thing is? That these will not be the last lives lost through incompetence, negligence, or simply indifference in the healthcare system. Or even through exhaustion, because the medical professionals - who are in short supply in the intensive care units - are exhausted. ... So protect yourself from Covid to protect yourself from Romanian hospitals.”