AP: Romanian doctor flies babies to western Europe to save lives and escape bribes

Romania at its best and worst has hit headlines following an Associated Press (AP) article on a Romanian doctor's extraordinary efforts to save sick babies. The report highlights the endemic corruption in the Romanian health service, the need to bribe doctors, surgeons and nursing staff to receive healthcare and follows one Romanian doctor's lonely stance. According to the AP article, Dr. Catalin Cirstoveanu runs a specialist unit in the Bucharest Children's Hospital, but, since it opened a year and a half ago, no babies have been treated as, “medical staff he needs to bring in to run the machinery would have expected bribes.” Instead Dr Cirstoveanu flies children to western Europe to be treated bribe free. The article describes how Dr Cirstoveanu accompanies children, caring for them throughout and in one case hand pumping oxygen to keep a baby alive. His efforts contrast starkly with the norm, corruption running so deep that surgeons apparently demand bribes before operating to save lives and nurses need to be slipped a few notes to change sheets and administer medicine. "To be honest, it's so deeply rooted into our system that it's really difficult to eliminate," Health Minister Ladislau Ritli said in an interview with AP. Parents of children whose lives have been saved by Dr Cirstoveanu's heroic efforts are unstinting in their praise. "Cirstoveanu is more than a hero - he is a god for us and the children," said Gheorghe Meliusoiu, father of one of the children saved by Dr Cirstoveanu, quoted by AP. Read the AP article here. Liam Lever, liam@romania-insider.com