Bucharest hospital managers held on bribery charges

Romania’s anticorruption prosecutors held two Bucharest hospital managers on Thursday, after they carried out searches at four big hospitals in the capital and questioned their managers throughout the day. The manager of the Bagdasar-Arseni hospital, Bogdan Paltineanu, was the first one held, after more than four hours of questioning at the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) headquarters. The prosecutors charged him with bribery related to public purchases. They found that the hospital manager had taken some EUR 78,000 kickbacks from two local firms, in May-August 2015, so that the hospital he was managing at that time, the Ana Aslan Geriatric Institute, would buy products from those firms. Paltineanu apparently took 5% to 10% of the value of those contracts. Last night, the prosecutors also held the manager of the Bucharest Oncologic Institute, Dan Nicolae Straja, on similar charges. Fighting the corruption in the healthcare sector is one of DNA’s priorities, as the bribes in this sector are higher than in other sectors, DNA’s chief prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi said yesterday. She added that DNA had some 150 cases of fraud in public purchases carried out by local hospitals. editor@romania-insider.com