Abuses in Romania’s Foster Care Facilities

After the scandal known as The Retirement Centers of Horror, inspections are being carried out at foster facilities for the elderly, disabled and children all over Romania

Bogdan Matei, 10.07.2023, 14:00

Less than one month after being sworn in, the mandate
of Romania’s new Prime Minister, Social Democrat Marcel Ciolacu seems to be quite
uncomfortable as early as the onset. Besides the present problems, Ciolacu now
has to handle a widely-covered media scandal with political and legal
implications: the horrific abuses in several old people’s homes around the
capital city Bucharest.

The Prime Minister summoned his team on Sunday to
assess the situation in the Ilfov County, southern Romania, after prosecutors had
identified organized criminal groups which were exploiting and abusing helpless
individuals. The head of the Romanian government has
called on the field authorities to carry out inspections in all the foster
facilities for children, disabled or elderly people, be they state-owned or
private.

According to the Prime Minister, it is unacceptable
for the institutions in charge to shift the blame for what happened. I have no
mercy for the scoundrels that have created these horror centers and the fact
that something like that was possible shows only one thing: we are actually
dealing with a flawed system. The system must be changed’ – the Prime Minister
says. His statement comes after the anti-mafia prosecutors from DIICOT have
launched an investigation at three old-people’s centers in Voluntari and Afumaţi,
two of Bucharest’s satellite towns, for the inhuman treatment their residents have
been subjected to. Several people have already been apprehended in a file known
as ‘The Retirement Centers of Horror’, including the one who initiated the
business and was unknown until now, Ştefan Godei. According to prosecutors,
Godei has so far raked in the equivalent of more than half a million Euros in
less than two years. He used to spend a large part of this money on drugs,
prostitutes and parties, while the elderly were being treated like prisoners in
concentration camps: beaten, insulted, starved, forced to do the most
humiliating tasks and deprived of minimum hygiene conditions. Nearly one hundred of these people have already
been taken over by SMURD paramedics to be transferred to hospitals and other
treatment facilities.

In the meantime, the opposition in
Bucharest has called for the resignation of the Minister of Family, Gabriela Firea,
a Social Democrat like the Prime Minister, whom the press blames for being
linked to the file. Her husband, Florentin Pandele, has been mayor of the town
of Voluntari for 23 years now while one of his sisters has headed the Social
Assistance system in the Ilfov County. The one the journalists have dubbed ‘the
Infamous Godei’ used to be Firea’s driver while the latter was mayor of
Bucharest between 2016 and 2020. No one is invoking criminal charges for Firea
in the aforementioned retirement centers file, but many agree that her public
image has been seriously tarnished and is presently affecting both the
government and the party. Few are those who believe that she still stands
chances to become Bucharest mayor again after she announced her intention to
run for this seat in the local election next year.

(bill)