New investigations in the public healthcare sector

Corruption is more widespread in the public healthcare sector than in other areas, says National Anti-Corruption Directorate chief Laura Codruta Kovesi.

Bogdan Matei, 24.05.2016, 13:11

The most widely discussed topic in
Romania these days is the death of Hexi Pharma owner Dan Condrea in a car crash
on Sunday. For several weeks, he had been the most hated figure in Romania,
after a piece of investigative journalism, later confirmed by lab tests,
revealed that his company had been producing and selling diluted disinfectants
to tens of hospitals. The local media speculate that Condrea’s death
conveniently occurred one day before he was due to be heard by prosecutors and
may well be the end of investigations into the web of complicity at the top of the public healthcare sector, without which his diluted disinfectant business could
not have thrived for so many years.

However, the Condrea-Hexi Pharma
affair is just the tip of the iceberg. Bribery in the public healthcare sector is
more widespread than in other areas, and as many as 75 people have been
prosecuted for corruption in this field in the past two years alone, said the
chief prosecutor of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, Laura Codruta
Kovesi. She also said that these corruption cases also involved foreign
companies, and called for a strategic approach to this problem:

Current investigations conducted by
the Anti-Corruption Directorate indicate that corruption in this sector takes
the form of the same, repetitive actions. Without clear prevention and control
measures, such actions and the mechanisms that have made them possible will
occur again. We need a strategic approach to preventing corruption,
particularly when it comes to sectors that directly affect the lives of our
citizens, such as the health sector.

Kovesi says that corruption in the
healthcare system can only be eliminated if the people being investigated or
convicted for bribe-taking lose their public offices. She also announced that
investigations were being conducted throughout the country concerning the
procurement of medical supplies, equipment and pharmaceuticals. As a relevant
example, two well-known public figures in the field, both of whom were former
chiefs of the National Health Insurance Agency, Vasile Ciurchea and Irinel
Popescu, are being prosecuted for abuse of office. They have reportedly ordered
the purchase of over-priced software and technical assistance services, causing
damages of nearly 17 million euros.

The prosecutors’ probe into the
system comes against the backdrop of constant protests by healthcare unions,
which decry the low salaries in the sector and demand pay rises on an almost
quarterly basis. While absurd, the situation confirms opinions according to
which the problem is not that the system is under-funded, but rather that the
people working in the system are stealing too much.