More abuses in nursing homes across Romania disclosed
PM Ciolacu sacks the Mures prefect and sub-prefect.
The Legal Resources Center (CRJ) announced on Thursday evening that the beneficiaries in the basement of the Mures asylum were housed among piles of rubble, on mattresses full of feces, urine and blood. Most of them could not speak and could not move, being full of flies, dirt and malnourished. Two people, in serious condition, were found hidden in a locked room of three square meters, without natural light, sitting in a bed. In total there were 30 people in the center, 13 being transported to the hospital.
“Up to now, out of the total of 30 people identified, 13 have already been transported to UPU Târgu Mureş for additional medical care, as they suffer from chronic ailments. Also, one person was taken in by their relatives and another 17 people will be relocated to other care centers belonging to the DGASPC in the municipality of Sighişoara (4 people) and the localities of Luduş (9 people) and Ideciu (3 people)”, the Mures Inspectorate for Emergency Situations said in its turn.
The Legal Resources Center made an unannounced monitoring visit to the Căsuţa Lu’ Min Care and Assistance Center in Bărdeşti, Mureş County. The asylum was running smoothly, with 23 patients in rooms and seven other disabled patients holed up in the basement of the building, kept in inhumane conditions.
“The team found that, in addition to the 23 beneficiaries of the center staying in the rooms, in the basement of the building there were hidden behind a plastic curtain, among piles of rubble, construction materials, bags of clothes, old medical equipment, 4 people with severely disabled lying on mattresses soiled with faeces, urine and blood, with flies on them, unable to defend themselves and unable to call for help (non-verbal and unable to move). One of the people was in an advanced state of malnutrition (skin and bone), with injuries on the hip, covered with flies, smelling strongly of feces”, the CRJ said in a press release on Thursday evening.
Following these notifications, the Minister of Labor sent the control body to Mureș, where a new asylum of horror was discovered. The authorities need to explain why these horrors were discovered again by those at the Legal Resource Center, and not by the state institutions that controlled the home just this month. Simona Bucura Oprescu says that firm measures will be taken against the employees of the institutions with a control role who inspected this asylum.
“It is a bottomless villainy that once again shows that evil must be cut from the root. It is obvious that we are in a situation that tells us all one thing – institutional cleaning must be done, thorough institutional cleaning. Don’t let it happen in the Romanian style where today we deal with a topic that burns and tomorrow everyone forgets.
This time, we must understand that we must do it seriously, with a well-defined and impeccably implemented strategy, so that the part of social assistance in Romania is really the one that takes care of vulnerable people and not a way for some scoundrels to make money and mistreat people in need”, said the Minister of Labor about the case discovered in Mureș less than a month after the DIICOT descents from Ilfov.
A former beneficiary from the horror asylum in Mureș confirmed the shocking findings made by the Law Centre. He told that, when state institutions came under scrutiny, abused and sedated beneficiaries were hidden away from the eyes of inspectors. Especially, because some were not taken into account as admitted to the asylum. The man says he was being punished and beaten even by those who were supposed to take care of him.
“I was in the year 2021. Everything was ok at first, but after a while there started to be checks. They were starting to collect the beneficiaries who were being mistreated, sedated. They were hidden in cellars, in other rooms, down in the basement. I was not in their base date in Târgul Mureș. I was also hidden. They put us in the solar, they locked us in the solar, so they couldn’t see our control. I was being punished. We were getting beaten up for no reason,” the beneficiary told Digi24.
Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu announced, on Fridayafternoon that he dismissed the prefect and sub-prefect of Mureș after the horrors discovered at the asylum at the Căsuţa Lu’ Min Care and Assistance Center in Bărdești.
He also said that a review is taking place so that the punishments for serious cases in social centers are increased.
“If we have to we’ll amend the criminal code,” said Ciolacu, adding that he and the Romanian state will “have no mercy” for those involved in the horrors of care centers.
New case in Voluntari: 26 old people were locked in a greenhouse, in full heat
Another shocking case come to light in the town of Voluntari, where 26 elderly and disabled people were rescued from an asylum of horrors, discovered by the authorities on Thursday. Patients were forced to sleep in a greenhouse in the heat of the day.
Those 26 people, mostly old people, but also people with disabilities, were taken to the hospital units in Ilfov and Bucharest. Doctors are checking their health because the authorities do not know at the moment what conditions they endured in that center in Voluntari, how long they stayed in the heat.
The center was operating without authorization, the managers of the center received fines of 10,000 lei.
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Fackin disgusting! Give the guilty the same treatment the Ceausescu’s got….the firing squad!
A society that does not respect the elderly is a rotten society. Romania needs to wake up.
The horror of this story is that the state institutions controlled the nursing home in the month the abuses were discovered by the CRI team. This happens when the CORRUPTION exist and there is no sense of accountability. Its very painful to see these people suffering because of the system.