Eight hospitals in Bucharest are among the top ten hospitals in Romania by the number of patients who said they were asked to pay bribes to doctors and medical staff there, according to a report by Anti-Bribery Synergy.

The report is based on answers provided by patients treated at 352 hospitals around the country.

Some 3,800 patients who participated in this survey said they were asked to pay bribes. The most positive answers were for the Emergency University Hospital in Bucharest (153 patients said they were asked to pay bribes there), followed closely by the Emergency County Hospital in Braila (147), Hotnews.ro reported. The St. John Emergency Hospital in Bucharest was next, with 98 answers, followed by the Filantropia Hospital in Bucharest (95), the Matei Bals Infectious Diseases Institute also in Bucharest (91), and the Fundeni Clinical Institute in Bucharest (87).

The hospitals in Bucharest are among the biggest in the country and treat a large number of patients, which could explain their massive presence at the top of this ranking. The report doesn’t mention what percentage of each hospital’s patients participated in this survey or what percentage of the total number of patients who participated in the survey said they were asked to pay bribes, which would be a more relevant indicator of how widespread corruption is in these hospitals.

The bribery ranking was created by Anti-Bribery Synergy within a project of the Health Ministry aiming to monitor the operational performances and fight bribery in local hospitals.

editor@romania-insider.com

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