Why prosecutors wanted doctor Burnei behind bars?

Doctor Gheorghe Burnei from “Marie Curie” Hospital for children represents through his defective medical activity a real danger for his minor patients’ health condition and life, reads the Prosecutor’s Office’s document asking for the doctor’s preventive arrest. Prosecutors say that many of the surgeries performed by Burnei were mere experiments and were not compliant with the medical procedures, while aggravating the patients’ precarious condition in some cases.

“We have the numerous statements of the parents whose children have been operated by Gheorghe Burnei and whose health condition have considerably worsened following the doctor’s interventions. There were cases when some children got paralyzed (…) Yet, the defendant takes no responsibility and becomes verbally violent when parents are facing him, while falsely throwing an extra blame on the very hard tried parents,” prosecutors argue.

Investigators also point out that the doctor used two categories of medical devices and prosthesis, namely the homologated ones and other hand-made ones, non-compliant with the medical standards, thus certifying the idea that Burnei was “experimenting on children”.

“The hand-made devices were made by the defendant’s acquaintances at the National Research Institute for Mechatronics and Measurement Technique. Checks proved that there is no official contract between Marie Curie Hospital and this institute. The defendant used to experiment on children, using boiled cow bones or tank filters for the implants,” the paper further shows.

Moreover, the cow bones and the others were found out stored in the doctor’s fridge in the hospital, together with foodstuff or alcoholic drinks. “Preliminary information reveals that tissues stored in these conditions had been already used as transplants for other children.”

Anti-corruption prosecutors also discovered that doctor Burnei was not asking money or benefits directly and he has never accepted them before the surgery. Instead, he allowed parents “to grant” him with money or benefits. In other cases he was asking fro money before the surgery trying to hide the bribe in the guise of donation contract.

For instance, on November 21, 2016, the defendant pretended a bribe of EUR 1,350 to a witness to operate his son. The witness is indicter in this case and the bribe was hidden as an alleged donation for the hospital’s orthopedics ward. However, Burnei received the money not as a donation between the patient and the hospital, but based on a false contract. The money were not registered in the hospital’s bookkeeping, but remained in the doctor’s pocket.

Despite the prosecutors’ arguments, the Bucharest Tribunal overruled their request for preventive arrest and ordered that Burnei should be placed under house arrest. The ruling is not final.

A doctor’s testimony

Meanwhile, other testimonies were revealed in Burnei’s case, such as the one made by an orthopedist who has worked with Burnei in the past and who revealed that other doctors knew about his experiments on patients.

Romanian doctor Roman Marchitan, currently working in a hospital in France, used to be resident physician at the pediatrics orthopedic ward at Marie Curie Hospital in Bucharest, under Gheorghe Burnei’s guidance.

In a letter sent to casajurnalistului.ro, Marchitan recounts about his experience of working with Brunei, claiming that “the unscrupulous monster image is in the flesh”, disclosing that the other physicians used to know the experiments Burnei made on his patients.

Burnei had re-invented the parallel medicine, opposite to any current logics, stepping on the victims without any bit of twinge of conscience. If you had the possibility of knowing the person as we did, you would understand that the image of an unscrupulous monster is not just the product of some subjective victims’ impression, but it is in flesh and blood and nothing that you’ve heard about him is not exaggerated,” Marchitan writes.

The doctor working now in France describes Burnei as “obsessed” with the idea of being renowned, of discovering interventions that should bear his name and make him famous.

Burnei was obsessed with inventing something. Anything. His personal tragedy was that he had been born too late and that everything had been already invented. No  intervention was to bear his name and nobody wasn’t to start their case studies presentations with <according to Burnei, we should…> He was not asking for anyone’s opinion, <le flair>, inspiration were the only ones counting for him, he was expert in any field. God,” the orthopedist said.

At the same time, Marchitan accuses that Burnei would sometimes intervene in cases where he had no necessary expertize to provide the cure, reminding of cases that had a tragic end.

He used to operate grown ups without considering he had no medical training in this respect. It’s like I’d operate glaucoma. Adults are not larger-sized children, it’s not enough to use some bigger discs or pins, no pediatrics orthopedist knows how to correctly operate a trivial ankle fracture (…) Saving that doctor Burnei doesn’t know how is the prevention of the thromboembolic disease on adults, a minor detail. The patient died. His family has never filed for a complaint, and, as long as the family doesn’t file any complaint, business as usual,” Marchitan argues.

childrendoctordoctor roman marchitanFrancegheorghe burneihouse arrestmonsterorthopedistPreventive Action Planprosecutorssurgeriestestimony
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