Health minister: Checks confirm irregularities among organ transplants in Romania

Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu announced that serious irregularities have been tracked down following the Ministry’s Control Body’s checks at the National Transplant Agency (ANT).

“The Health Ministry’s control body found out that there are no criteria and procedures to allot the organs, and that the laws in force aren’t observed,” Voiculescu told a press conference at the Health Ministry on Saturday.

The minister argued that there is no waiting list on a national level for each organ, although according to the rules it should have been functional, there is no regulation on allotting the organs, but only a custom based on which the allocation is made, the patients on the transplant waiting lists don’t always benefit of equal chances, as it is likely for the patient who is on top of the list not to enter surgery, there aren’t any clear procedures for contacting the patients who could be transplant beneficiaries.

“The Health Ministry control body also discovered some issues raising suspicions over the fairness of allotting the organs for transplant in the first place to the patients’ interest and with the observance of medical prioritization criteria,” Voiculescu said.

He pointed out that in one of the transplant centres of Romania “a number of 140 transplants were conducted for one single pathological area in 2014.”

“60 percent of the patients who benefited of these transplants were registered on the waiting list precisely the same year, although there were patients waiting for an organ since 2005. Moreover, in one centre and on one single pathological area 80 percent of the transplant beneficiaries were registered the same year, 2015,” the minister pointed out.

Minister Voiculescu ordered that the regulation on organ allocation should be drafted as soon as possible, while notifying the authorities s in charge about all these irregularities.

“The Health Ministry also notified the bodies in charge over all these irregularities. Checks will go on, in spite of any calumnies. I want to make a call on the common sense and humanity of the political players of Romania whom I ask to understand that we are talking about the lives of some people here, the trust in the fairness of the medical act, trust which is essential in the case of transplant, too. I also ask them to understand that it is deeply immoral to turn a medical topic so delicate and complex as transplant into an election battle stake. When your life depends on an organ, it shouldn’t matter that you are from Timisoara, or Cluj. It should not matter at all if you are the patient of a transplant centre headed by a certain person and not another. Moreover, it should not matter if you are more famous than the other patients on the waiting list,” Voiculescu also said.

In respect to lung transplant, Vlad Voiculescu pointed out that the Health Ministry’s position is a “very clear” one.

“We need to develop this type of transplant in Romania, too. We need experts specialized in lung transplant, we need investments in infrastructure to provide the patients with the best safety conditions. We need all these things, but we aren’t allowed to play with people’s lives. As at present Romania is not able to ensure not even the post-transplant care of the Romanian patients who receive a lung transplant abroad, it is irresponsible to say that we are prepared for the lung transplant,” the minister said.

He also said that “the manner in which the money was spent at St. Maria hospital and the extent to which the transplant centre up there corresponds to the international standards will be clarified in the coming period,” mentioning that “on 8 and 9 December the Health Ministry Control Body will be joined by an international specialist committee from lung transplant centres in Europe.”

“We are waiting in this respect the approval of Mayor Gabriela Firea for the checkup. Without this approval, according to law, the Control Body will not be able to conduct checkups in this hospital,” the minister concluded.

Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu has announced four days ago that the report of the Health Ministry’s Control Body revealed irregularities at the National Transplant Agency and four hospitals, there is also suspicion regarding public spending, so that complaints will be filed regarding possible criminal deeds of forgery and use of forgery and also complaints to the National Integrity Agency (ANI) for conflict of interests and incompatibility.

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