Radio România Internațional

Tag: Health Minister Nelu Tataru

  • Code-red restrictions extend to other counties

    Code-red restrictions extend to other counties

    Apart from
    Bucharest, several towns in Romania have switched to code red after the Group
    for Strategic Communication announced an infection rate close to 3 per thousand
    inhabitants. Over half of Romania’s counties have already exceeded 1.5
    infections per thousand inhabitants. Over 10,000 people are hospitalized across
    the country, of which several hundred in intensive care. Every day comes with
    new reports of dozens of fatalities, and the total death toll since the start
    of the pandemic is close to 6,000. According to a weekly report released by the
    Institute of Public Health, last week the number of new cases continued to go
    up, although at a slower pace.

    Nearly a third of new infections were reported
    in Bucharest as well as in Iaşi, Timiş and Dolj counties. One in 32 infections
    is a medical staff, while over 95% of people who died to COVID-19 had at least
    one other associated illness. Following an assessment of the Health Ministry
    and the Department for Emergency Situations, another 100 beds will be made
    available in ITUs in Bucharest. Other counties too are taking similar measures
    amidst a surge in serious cases of COVID-19. Authorities are also considering
    increasing the numbers of doctors and nurses treating infected people.

    Health
    Minister Nelu Tătaru announced 200 resident doctors and specialists who passed
    an exam in intensive care, emergency care, epidemiology, infectious disease,
    pulmonology and radiology and who are currently unassigned will be moved to an
    emergency hospital in the capital city, pending their appointment to hospitals
    reporting shortages of medical personnel. Moreover, the Health Ministry has
    decided to transform a number of hospitals in Bucharest into COVID-19 treatment
    hospitals. The decision comes as hospitals are finding it increasingly hard to
    deal with the large numbers of infections. Minister Nelu Tătaru recently said
    that patients who test positive, but also those who exhibit no symptoms of
    illness, would be sent home for evaluation and transferred into the care of
    family physicians for monitoring.

    On the other hand, some hospitals have suspended
    all admissions or limited their activity for 14 days in various wards after
    several of their employees tested positive for coronavirus. Earlier this week
    Bucharest switched to the code red level of restrictions after the rate of
    infection reported in the last 14 days exceeded 3 per thousand inhabitants. As
    of Monday, face masks are mandatory in all enclosed and open spaces, while restaurants,
    coffee shops, cinemas, performance halls and gambling outlets were closed down.
    Finally, nursery schools, primary schools and high schools have switched to
    online teaching.


    (Translated by
    V. Palcu)



  • Well-Staffed Public Health Directorates

    Well-Staffed Public Health Directorates

    The Romanian Health Minister Nelu Tataru has announced that the Public Health Directorates are well staffed. He has stated that some one thousand school doctors and nurses have been posted to all counties to help carry out epidemiological investigations, against the background of a spike in the number of Covid-19 cases. The minister has explained that each case of infection must be analyzed, and the epidemiological investigation must be carried out within 24 hours. The results are entered into a data base, so that any outbreak can be tracked and the necessary action taken. “By doing correct epidemiological investigations, by securing correct epidemiological circuits in hospitals, through checks, we will register a decrease in transmission and we will also see a drop in the number of cases”, Tataru explained on a television station. The statements and measures come after media reported situations in which people could not contact public health directorate employees.



    On Monday, the Health Minister made an unannounced visit to the Emergency County Hospital in Galati, in the east, which has a mobile Intensive Care Unit, which is not functional due to lack of staff. Doctors will be deployed there too, although the hospital can cope with its own intensive care unit. The number of new cases of coronavirus infection might drop in the coming period if some rules are observed, minister Tataru stressed:



    “It very much depends on our behavior. As long as we observe some rules, such as keeping the right physical distance, wearing a mask in enclosed spaces and in public means of transport, or using a disinfectant, community spread will decrease. This means that in a week and a half the curb will get flat, and then we will see a drop in the number of cases, therefore we can think of going down the hill of the first pandemic episode. Unless we observe the rules, we will witness an increasing number of new cases, from one day to the next, which will at some point suffocate medical units, intensive care units in general, and the situation will get a bit more difficult. At the moment we have identified and can prepare hospitals for the third and fourth line, but we hope it wont be necessary. The context in which we find ourselves is the one in which we must abide by certain rules. As long as we think only of finding hospitals, without following the rules, and the number of patients keeps growing, it will get too much for hospitals and the medical personnel.”



    He has also said that a decision regarding the start of the new school year will be made in the second half of this month. (M. Ignatescu)


  • Relaxation and the Risk Bonus

    Relaxation and the Risk Bonus

    In the almost four months that have passed since the first case of coronavirus infection was reported in Romania, some 23 thousand people have tested positive and 1450 have died of Covid-19. Early this month, the number of new cases was on a downward trend, and everybody was hoping the number would keep decreasing, and life would come back to normal. In the past week, though, the trend has changed, and there are some 2 to 3 hundred new cases reported every day. The increase in the number of new cases follows a relaxation of restrictions and its no surprise, said on Radio Romania the health minister Nelu Tataru.



    Nelu Tataru: “There have been three periods of relaxation, and we expect to have now a progressive, not exponential increase, and this is what is happening, because there are still ministers orders in place, which set certain norms for the carrying out and functioning of activities and operations. As long as we observe these norms and rules, we can say that the evolution is favorable, even if a slight increase in the number of new cases has been reported, and therefore we can think of further measures to ease restrictions as of July 1st.”



    For those in the health-care sector, though, there is no relaxation in the fight against Covid-19. On the other hand, at the end of so many exhausting weeks, some of them have voiced disappointment over what the trade unions in the field have described as “the unfair way in which the risk bonus has been awarded”. This bonus, covered from European funds, is the equivalent of 500 Euro, which political decision-makers in Romania decided at the start of the pandemic to grant to those working in the hospitals dealing with cases of Covid-19.



    “The employees expectations have been very high, following the health ministers public statements, who said that the staff working in the COVID hospitals would get the bonus”, trade unionists have stated. However, “the bonus was granted only to those who transported and got into direct contact with the Covid-19 patients, and not to all health-care staff who have carried out a strenuous activity over this period”, the unionists have also stressed.



    In order to avoid other interpretations and to prevent any unfairness, on Wednesday, the Chamber of Deputies, as a decision-making body on this matter, endorsed a bill which stipulates that this bonus is to be granted over the period of alert as well, not only over the state of emergency period, and the categories of staff benefiting from this bonus are clearly defined.



    Therefore, the medical-sanitary and auxiliary medical staff, including the specialized personnel from the paraclinical medical-sanitary structures and the paramedical personnel, including the one from civil structures, as well as the operative field intervention personnel from the ambulance services directly involved in transporting, equipping, assessing, diagnosing and treating patients suspect of and/or diagnosed with Covid-19 will benefit from this bonus. (M.Ignatescu)

  • The health-care system must be modernized

    The health-care system must be modernized

    It’s quite obvious that, after this pandemic, we will have to seriously think about the Romanian health-care system, said Prime Minister Ludovic Orban on Tuesday,
    when he attended a debate on this topic. He stressed the fact that the
    situation created by the new coronavirus highlighted things that were not
    working, things that must be fixed and the fact that, for a long period of
    time, the health-care system in Romania had been treated like a Cinderella. The
    PM said that the infrastructure was old and creating ‘lots of problems’, as very
    little investment was promoted.


    Ludovic Orban also stressed the fact that the health-care
    system in Romania is chronically under-financed, counting on the contributions
    of a small number of Romanian citizens, because there are many categories of
    citizens that are exempt from paying, although they benefit from such services.
    Moreover, the Prime Minister also stressed, the level of digitization in the
    system is extremely low.

    PM Ludovic Orban: The health card system, and that is a known
    fact, is collapsing. The digitization level in health care is extremely low.
    We ourselves, over this period, have been faced with the need for digitization, with all the data that we had to manage in a very short period
    of time and lots of information that had to be transmitted fast. It’s quite
    obvious that things need to be changed immediately.


    The Prime Minister also recalled a positive thing during
    the pandemic, namely that the medical system adapted quite rapidly and had a
    prompt reaction in the fight against Covid-19. He also highlighted the need for
    measures regarding hospital management. It’s clear that the procedures,
    although they exist, are not known, they have not been really implemented and
    hospital management is, in most cases, done without any proper training. Also,
    there is no real authority to impose the right rules in hospitals, and that is
    why there is a polycentric system at hospital level, the head of Government
    also said.


    Ludovic Orban also stressed that with regard to the medicines
    policy, the Government will have to intervene quite seriously in the coming
    period. Maintaining this clawback system, without rethinking it, led to the
    disappearance from the Romanian market of hundreds, maybe thousands of
    medicines, Orban explained. He said that in the coming period, investments in
    health will be a priority for the Government, alongside investments in
    transport and energy infrastructure, education, communications, research and
    development.


    Also on Tuesday, the Health Minister Nelu Tataru talked
    about a number of issues facing the health-care system, such as politicization, poor
    management, legislation, the lack of a coherent investment policy and the
    medicines policy. We must think of a health pact, we need professionals, the
    minister said.


    Nelu Tataru has also stated that Romania is on a downward
    trend as regards new cases of infection with the new coronavirus, and the
    number of serious cases is also decreasing. Community spread of the virus is
    low, and the number of tests conducted across the country has diminished, the
    minister said.


    The Health Ministry has announced that a sero-prevalence
    study will be conducted over June-September 2020, with the aim of monitoring
    the spread and thus take the necessary protection measures in the future. According
    to estimates, some 29 thousand residual serums are to be collected and
    analyzed. (M.Ignatescu)

  • New treatment methods in Romania

    New treatment methods in Romania

    In Romania, the first case of coronavirus infection
    was reported in late February. Aggregated data now show that, in approximately
    three months, the number of people testing positive has grown to approximately 18
    thousand. Some 1200 have died as a result of complications caused by Covid-19,
    usually against underlying co-morbidities.

    Some 11 thousand people have got
    cured, though. Faced with a new virus, Romanian doctors, just like their colleagues
    around the world, have tried various treatment schemes. The treatment based on
    plasma harvested from people with Covid-19 has been recently applied in Romania
    as well, and with good results. The patient is a 46 year old man, who developed
    a severe form of the disease, and who was in a coma for a long period of time. After
    being treated with plasma taken from people who had beaten the disease, the patient
    managed to pull through.


    On the other hand, in Bucharest, the municipality has
    decided to test a first lot of 11 thousand volunteers, for free. The tests that
    are going to be used are standard Real Time PCR tests, used widely at global level,
    to diagnose a potential infection with SAR-CoV-2. For each volunteer, the Bucharest
    municipality will pay 40 Euro to the labs that will take part in the project.


    This is the first such initiative by local authorities
    in Romania for the large-scale testing of asymptomatic people. Another project
    is due next week. Some 10 thousand 5 hundred Bucharesters will be tested for
    antibodies, to determine the way in which the virus has been circulating in the
    capital.


    Also, 2.3 million people from underprivileged categories
    will get 50 protective masks for a period of two months, according to a decision
    made by Government on Thursday. Health Minister Nelu Tataru has announced that
    the masks are to be distributed over the next days.


    Nelu Tataru: Local authorities must send to the Public
    Health Directorate a list of such persons, and, once purchased, the masks will
    be distributed to the population within three days. We must not forget that
    masks are extremely important these days, and they are mandatory in enclosed areas,
    on public means of transport and at work.

    Wearing a mask in enclosed areas
    became mandatory in Romania along with the coming into force, on May 15th,
    of the state of alert, which, after two months of state of emergency, also
    meant easing some of the restrictions, which in turn increases the risk of
    contamination. (M.Ignatescu)