Prime Minister Florin Cîțu announced on Tuesday that he will request an investigation to find out how wave 4 was prepared and stressed that those who did not take into account what he had said will be held responsible. He referred to the situation of insufficient beds in the ATI Covid sections.
“It is abnormal and someone has to answer for it if wave four was not prepared, although we talked about it all summer,” said Cîțu, who on Tuesday launched a new attack on USR-PLUS (which held the Health portfolio), associating it again with AUR.
In wave 4 of the pandemic, Romania has only 1,131 intensive care beds functional for patients with COVID-19, with only 16 of them available at this point nationwide. Only six ICU beds are spare in Bucharest, while there are no spare intensive care beds in Cluj, Iasi or Timișoara, according to the data released today by the Strategic Communication Group.
PM Citu also called for a “a management plan” to handle the situation and said he would have discussions with hospital managers and public health officials about intensive care beds and staff providing care for these beds for COVID patients.
The prime minister also stated that when the Ministry of Health was taken over by Cseke Atilla, after the departure of USR-PLUS from the government and the departure of USR PLUS minister, Ioana Mihăilă, there were “about 600 beds” in the Covid intensive care unit, although he had always said that 1,600 beds were needed”:
“The Minister understood my message, added a few hundred, about four hundred beds immediately and will add up to 1,600 beds as soon as possible, but that is not the only challenge. The challenge is to have and staff seconded to these COVID sections”.
On the other hand, the prime minister launched a new attack against USR-PLUS, invoking their partnership with AUR for the censure motion. Citu accused USR PLUS that they “are trading the Romanians’ health for the votes in Parliament” and blaming them for “everything that is happening”.
“We are in the midst of a pandemic. There is a party in Romania, AUR, which has an anti-vaccination campaign. I look at USR, which says nothing about this campaign, says nothing about their new partners. I want to say to all those who keep quiet and implicitly support the actions that they are responsible for what is happening today in Romania. If someone is silent and accepts the actions of AUR, they must understand that they are responsible. (… )Those who tacitly support them because they need their votes, trade the health of Romanians for the votes in Parliament, and they should understand that they are responsible for what is happening “, said Florin Cîțu.
In retort, USR-PLUS spokesman, deputy Ionuț Moșteanu, replied that the only culprit for the failure of the vaccination campaign is the prime minister himself and asks him to come up with a report explaining why Romania is second to last in Europe on anti-Covid vaccination.
“First of all, related to vaccination, Florin Cîţu, the incumbent prime minister, wanted to coordinate this vaccination campaign. Since he took office in December last year, he did not want to leave the Ministry of Health to take care of this campaign. He wanted to be the coordinator together with Valeriu Gheorghiţă and Secretary of State Andrei Baciu from the Ministry of Health, they coordinated this campaign, which is a failure and we must say this. I ask Florin Cîţu to come before the Parliament because the Romanians must know, as he likes to say, with a report on the vaccination campaign“, Ionuţ Moşteanu said in the Parliament today.
The USR PLUS spokesperson continued that PM Citu is coordinating the vaccination campaign. “He had all resources at hand, government resources, millions of euros were invested in the communication campaign. I want him to explain all Romanians why this campaign is a failure, why did we end up second t last in Europe on vaccination. He is to blame,” added Moşteanu.