75 people – 47 residents and 28 employees- of a retirement home in Bucharest, District 4, are infected with the novel coronavirus, the Public Health Direction announced, while also giving a RON 20,000 fine to the centre, which is under the authority of the Bucharest City Hall.
The case has thus sparked a row between the City Hall and the Public Health Direction, with both accusing each other for the infections among the retirement home’s residents and staff.
The Public Health Direction (DSP) says that the “COVID-19 outbreak has broken because the administrative and medical staff of the home had not enforced all measures to prevent the spread of the virus”, namely there were no special spaces set up for the staff to get equipped and take off the protection equipment and the final disinfection by nebulisation had not been made.
At present, all beneficiaries and employees of the retirement home in Berceni who tested positive for COVID-19 have no symptoms and were hospitalised, depending on each one’s related pathologies to various hospitals in Bucharest: Colentina, Dr. Victor Babes, Dr. Marius Nasta, Monza and the “Ana Aslan” Geriatric Institute in Otopeni, near Bucharest.
In retort, Bucharest City Hall announced that its General Social Assistance Department will file a criminal complaint against Bucharest Public Health Direction, arguing that it is the Direction that refused to test all the people in the retirement home (479 people- 246 employees and 233 beneficiaries).
“After waiting for three days for the DSP to test the staff and the beneficiaries of the Retirement Home in Berceni, in order to speed up the procedure and to replace the lack of reaction of DSP, the Bucharest City Hall has tested the people from its own resources, although, according to the laws in force, the staff of the residential centres must be tested by DSP, twice a month, while the residents should have been tested from the first case or symptoms”, the City Hall says.
The Berceni centre’s residents and staff have been tested for COVID-19 the past weekend, few days after a beneficiary had been hospitalised for an acute disease when he had also tested positive for the new coronavirus.