Radio România Internațional

Tag: burns

  • January 6, 2020 UPDATE

    January 6, 2020 UPDATE

    VISITS The president of Romania Klaus Iohannis and PM Ludovic Orban have working visits scheduled for the next few days, including meetings with European officials. The head of state will travel on Tuesday to southern Germany, where he will have talks with the Bavarian PM Markus Soder, head of the Christian-Social Union, a partner in the ruling coalition in Germany, and will attend a meeting of the Bavarian government, where he will give an address. President Iohannis will also take part in the annual meeting of the CSU group in Bundestag, the lower chamber in the German parliament, where he is to present Romanias views on the future of Europe. On Tuesday, PM Ludovic Orban will travel to Brussels, for meetings with the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, and the president of the European Parliament, David Sassoli.




    BUDGET President Klaus Iohannis Monday signed into law the 2020 state budget and social security budget bills, the Presidency announced. On December 23, the Liberal Government took responsibility before Parliament for the budget bills, the first time when this procedure has been used, in order to make sure that the bills are adopted by year-end, as PM Ludovic Orban explained. The state budget relies on a 4.1% economic growth rate, a 3.1% inflation rate and an average exchange rate of 4.75 lei for the euro. The speakers of the 2 chambers of Parliament, both in Opposition, challenged the procedure and referred the issue to the Constitutional Court.




    HOSPITAL Human error was the cause of the incident at the Floreasca Hospital in Bucharest, the largest emergency unit in Romania, where a patient died last month after suffering burns during surgery. This is the conclusion of the investigation that resulted in a roughly 6,300 euro fine against the hospital, as well as penalties against the entire surgery team. According to a news release issued by the Healthcare Ministry, the hospital also decided to dismiss Dr. Mircea Beuran as head of surgery, for failure to comply with the management contract. Doctors, nurses and assistants announced on Monday that they will go on strike to protest Dr. Beurans dismissal and that they will only attend to major emergencies. At the end of last month the National Healthcare Quality Management Authority suspended the accreditation of the hospital for failure to report the incident within 24 hours.




    EPIPHANY Orthodox and Greek Catholic believers celebrated on Monday the Epiphany or the Baptism of Jesus, when the revelation of God incarnate as Jesus Christ is marked. Waters are blessed on this occasion. The Epiphany is followed, on Tuesday, by St. John the Baptists feast day, which concludes the winter holiday cycle. Old-rite Christians, mostly Russian, Ukrainian and Serb ethnics, are celebrating Christmas on January 7. The separation of Orthodox churches took place in the early 20th Century, when the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople decided to switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.




    TENSIONS NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg
    has called on Iran to avoid further violence and provocations, at the end of
    a special meeting with NATO ambassadors in Brussels. We share concerns
    regarding Iran’s missile tests, and are united in condemning Tehran’s support
    for various terrorist groups, Stoltenberg also said. Huge crowds in mourning
    and shouting Death to the USA accompanied in Tehran on Monday the coffin of General
    Qassem Soleimani, the most popular military commander in Iran, killed in Iraq
    in a US drone strike. As a result, Iran announced it will no longer be
    bound by the international nuclear deal reached in 2015, and which the Trump
    administration abandoned in 2018. European countries, still part of the agreement,
    said they deeply regretted Iran’s decision to disregard uranium enrichment
    restrictions. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet with Russia’s
    president Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Saturday. Meanwhile, US president Donald
    Trump threatened tough sanctions if Iraq expels the US troops from that
    country. Trump made this statement after the Iraqi parliament endorsed a
    resolution urging the government to work toward the removal of foreign troops
    from Iraq. In Bucharest, PM Ludovic Orban said he is monitoring the situation with
    concern and attention, and that an escalation of the tensions is not desired.


    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

  • Measures for emergency situations

    Measures for emergency situations

    The city of Iasi (in northeastern Romania) saw the inauguration of a clinic for patients with severe burns. The clinic will operate in a 260-year old building that has been refurbished from scratch. The inauguration was also attended by the acting health minister Sorina Pintea, who also referred to the center opened in Timisoara (western Romania) last week.



    Sorina Pintea: “Every time I see something new, I feel like saying that it is more beautiful than what I have seen before. Indeed, it is larger and more spacious than the one in Timisoara. As regards equipment, it is identical with that in Timisoara but the challenge was even bigger as the clinic is hosted in a historical building that has been so nicely refurbished. All circuits have been respected, there are air filters in the wards for the people with very severe burns. We needed indeed a clinic for severe burns.”



    The clinic will seat 20 patients and it is equipped with state-of-the-art technology. The entire medical staff of this clinic, that is about 100 people, have attended 3 training courses in France. The costs for refurbishment works and equipment stand at around 10 million Euros and the clinic was designed and equipped so as to provide treatment for any type of burns, said Ioan Bârliba the manager of the clinic in Iasi.



    Ioan Bârliba: “The clinic can accommodate 20 patients. We have 5 big boxes for the patients with severe burns, 10 beds for patients with small and medium burns involving less than 20% of their body and 5 beds for intensive care. The clinic has its own ventilation and air conditioning systems, its own generator and oxygen supply system. All beds are custom-made, being equipped with burn-care equipment.”



    The first steps for setting up this clinic were taken 7 years ago, and in the last 2 years the focus has been on purchasing the equipment. So far, the patients with severe burns have been sent to Bucharest or have been treated in improvised areas.



    According to another project signed this week in Bucharest, about 9 thousand employees in the emergency care domain will benefit, in the next 3 years, from training with Romanian and foreign experts in relation to how to manage and intervene in critical situations. The project is worth almost 11 million Euros and the acting minister for European funds Roxana Mânzatu has underlined that it is for the first time when European funds are used for training the rescuers.



    In another development, the head of the Department for Emergency Situations, Raed Arafat, said that, together with the officials of the Ministry for European funds, he managed to increase the number of helicopters used for emergency interventions. All these things have been accomplished now, 4 years after the fire at the Bucharest-based club Colectiv which killed 65. (translation by L. Simion)

  • Homage paid to the victims of the Colectiv fire

    Homage paid to the victims of the Colectiv fire

    A subway breaks down in-between stops on the morning after the fire at the Bucharest-based nightclub Colectiv. The passengers start to interact. In brief, this is the plot of the independent production “We Get Off at the First Stop, directed by Tedy Necula and premiered on Tuesday evening in Bucharest, to mark three years since the tragedy that left a whole country horror-struck.



    On October 30, 2015, during a concert of the rock band Goodbye to Gravity at Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest, a fire broke out after a spark from the bands pyrotechnics ignited the clubs acoustic foam, making the fire spread rapidly. Hundreds of people found themselves trapped inside, with only one exit. The victims died either to burns or after inhaling a deadly mix of toxic discharges. A total of 64 people died and 200 others were injured. Nearly two years after the tragedy, a young man who had survived the fire committed suicide, suffering from severe psychological trauma.



    The capital city Bucharest and other cities across Romania on Tuesday hosted commemorative events devoted to the Colectiv victims. In Bucharest, special religious services were held and a commemorative march titled “The March of the Guitars. Hundreds of people gathered in Union Square in downtown Bucharest and marched to the place of the tragedy. Many others joined and once they reached the club, they observed a moment of silence at 10:30 PM, the exact time the fire broke out. Relatives, friends and colleagues of the victims and passers-by laid wreaths and lit candles in memory of the victims, heart-broken and helpless to bring about any change in politics, healthcare or society as a whole.



    Speaker: “Theres much to learn here and we ought to always remember theres something that needs changing in our country, and we should do something about it.



    Speaker: “This will only take five minutes, you know how people make a fuss about things but then they let it all settle and everyone goes about his business.



    Three years on, Health Minister Sorina Pintea admitted that Romania is incapable of dealing with a fire of such magnitude. Hospitals all over the country can accommodate only 11 patients suffering from severe burns and authorities would have to call on outside help should a similar tragedy occur. Moreover, to this day Romania still has scores of bars, nightclubs, guesthouses and shopping malls running without a permit from the fire department. As regards the criminal case regarding the Colectiv fire, it is still ongoing in the court of first instance, with the victims families still waiting for justice to be served.


    (translated by: Vlad Palcu)