Coronavirus in Romania: New management of Suceava County Hospital resigns as 200 doctors and nurses infected

The new management of the Suceava County Hospital resigned on Wednesday evening, April 1, local publication Monitorul de Suceava has reported. The doctors in the hospital have asked the Suceava prefect Alexandru Moldovan to find a solution so that new management is appointed to manage the difficult situation.

Health minister Nelu Tataru announced he would go to Suceava personally to check the situation and that he would leave newly-appointed state secretary Ionel Oprea, a military doctor, in the city to manage the crisis, the Strategic Communication Group announced on Thursday morning.

The County Hospital in Suceava has become the biggest Covid-19 hotspot in Romania after several patients brought the virus to the hospital and infected dozens of doctors and nurses. The Health Ministry decided to close the hospital on March 25.

The hospital’s manager Florin Filip and medical director Doina Ganea Motan had been named in these positions one week before, after the hospital’s former manager Vasile Rimbu was suspended because of the dramatic situation in this medical unit caused by a string of bad management decisions.

There are currently about 200 medical workers at the Suceava County Hospital who are infected with the new coronavirus (Covid-19), representing about 60% of all the infected healthcare personnel in Romania.

Suceava has the highest number of confirmed Covid-19 infection cases, over 600, representing more than a quarter of all the confirmed cases in Romania. Moreover, more than a third of the 92 Covid-19 victims reported in Romania so far have died at the Suceava County Hospital.

The city and eight surrounding localities, with a total registered population of over 160,000 people, are under quarantine.

A criminal investigation conducted by prosecutors from Suceava has revealed that some employees from the county hospital and the local Public Health Direction (DSP) haven’t followed the legal procedures and have delayed testing the medical personnel at the hospital. Meanwhile, people who didn’t necessarily need testing were tested first, according to Digi24.ro.

The hospital also didn’t respect the protocol for isolating confirmed Covid-19 patients in the hospital’s infectious diseases section, according to the prosecutors.