Serious accusations launched by the doctor Elena Copaciu, primary physician Anesthesia-Intensive Therapy, to the Minister of Health, Alexandru Rafila, regarding the beds for large burns made “out of a pen”.
In Romania there is no functional center for the severely burned PHOTO: ARCHIVE
According to a Hotnews.ro investigation, in April 2024, the Ministry of Health discreetly slipped an Order into the Official Gazette, without making any announcement in this regard, says ATI doctor Elena Copaciu. It claims that the legislative amendment allows for, “from the pen”medical structures become wards for major burns, but without having the resources and medical performance necessary to care for patients.
Hospitals in Romania did not have, according to the legislation valid until April, wards that corresponded to the standards of the legislation for the safe treatment of patients with severe burns.
The main consequence of the publication of the new Order: “Doctors will be able to admit severely burned patients in structures that do not conform to the needs of the severely burned patient, without fearing medico-legal consequences”explains Dr. Elena Copaciu.
After the Colectiv fire, doctor Elena Copaciu worked, in the Ministry of Health, on the elaboration of Order 476/2017 regarding the organization and operation of structures for the care of burn patients. This normative act was in force until April 2024, when the new Order elaborated by the team of Alexandru Rafila, the former representative of Romania at the World Health Organization, was approved.
The doctor claims that architects, engineers, professionals and decision-makers from the medical field collaborated in the drafting of the 2017 Order.
Drafted and published in decision-making transparency during Vlad Voiculescu’s first mandate as Minister of Health, Order 476 was approved, without changes, by the next minister, Florian Bodog (PSD), in May 2017.
The Ministry of Health had no beds for major burns in 2021. Minister Rafila claims there are 34 beds
The criteria for major burns wards provided in the Order approved 7 years ago are not fully respected by any hospital wards in Romania, believes Elena Copaciu.
Romania has, seven years after the entry into force of that normative act and almost 9 years after Colectiv, no department that can safely care for the burned.
This even though, last August, immediately after the Crevedia explosion, the Ministry of Health claimed that there were 34 “beds for big burns” in 6 hospitals: Floreasca Emergency Clinical Hospital in Bucharest, Reparative Plastic Surgery and Burns Emergency Clinical Hospital in Bucharest, Sf. Spiridon County Emergency Clinical Hospital in Iasi, “Pius Brânzeu” County Emergency Clinical Hospital in Timișoara, Bagdasar-Arseni Emergency in Bucharest and “Grigore Alexandrescu” Emergency Clinical Hospital for Children in Bucharest (beds for children).
Of these, the only beds that come close to the standards are the six at the Floreasca Emergency Hospital, says Dr. Elena Copaciu, but even these do not meet 100% of the standards of beds for major burns.
According to statistics, 10,000 patients present themselves annually to the on-call rooms of Romanian hospitals for burn injuries, and around 4,000 cases require hospitalization. Around 1,400 – 1,500 of these patients represent cases of medium and high severity.
