Have you seen the famous Romanian movie “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu” released in 2005 and telling the story of a 63-year-old man who is moved from one hospital to another until he dies on his feet?
A few recent similar cases have rubbed in a controversial topic and the deplorable state of the Romanian health system.
An 82-year-old woman was found dead on a field nearby Brasov last weekend after she was allowed to leave the hospital in pyjamas and slippers. She had ben frozen to death. She had been admitted to Tractorul Hospital in Brasov due to a pulmonary congestion. The old woman’s relatives accuse the doctors for erroneously discharging her. The woman’s grand daughter said the hospital bodyguard told her that her grand mother was left by the paramedics on a chair, on the hall, holding her medical record. Meanwhile, witnesses say a doctor came and asked the old lady how she was feeling. “My grand mother said she was OK and that she wanted to go home. Doctor Grigore told her to sign the discharging record and then she is free to go,” the grand daughter.
The bodyguard also said that a nurse who was ending her working program accompanied the old lady to a cab although she was wearing pyjamas. When she got up in the taxi, she said she wanted to go to Braila and the taxi driver turned her down.
On the other hand, doctors say the woman was insisting to leave and refused the hospitalization and that’s why they let her go. Moreover, the hospital leadership claims that the doctor who discharged her was only replacing the doctor on guard that day.
Health Minister ordered an investigation in this case.
The Health Ministry also asked for a new inquiry at the same hospital in Brasov following complaints that an ambulance was transporting three patients on the same gurney. The hospital’s manager said the ambulance’s driver must have been on the run and transported the patients only once instead of twice.
“Mr. Lazarescu” from Iasi
The health authorities in Iasi are probing into the death case of a university professor who would have waited for six hours to receive medical treatment at Parhon Hospital in Iasi. He was transported there following a severe respiratory arrest. Later on, he was transferred to St. Spiridon Hospital, the doctors telling his wife, also a professor doctor, that they could not identify if he suffered a heart failure or a pulmonary embolism. The professor died four days later.
No later than February this year, Iasi hospitals were in the middle of another row after a 20-year-old pregnant woman died a few days after undergoing a C-section. Her family accuse the woman was transported to four different hospitals without being properly treated. The doctors are retorting that the young woman suffered of several affections and contracted a lung infection that caused her death.