Romanian hospital uses posters to send anti-bribery message to patients

Corruption in the healthcare system has been one of Romania’s problems for many years, and this also includes bribing the medical staff even for basic care, which is very common in local public hospitals. The Emergency Hospital in Slatina, in Olt county, thought that anti-bribery posters would convince patients to stop giving bribes to the medical staff. “Our salaries have increased, we don’t need bribe!,” read the posters, which the patients can see when entering the hospital, but also at the entrance of each department, local Gazeta de Sud reported. Trying to make the message even more convincing, the hospital management also listed the salaries of the doctors, nurses and other employees on the posters. For example, a doctors has a gross salary of between RON 16,000 and RON 30,000 while a nurse earns between RON 4,800 and RON 11,000. The anti-bribery posters end with the message: “We’re letting corruption suffer while healing you!” “The wages are more than reasonable […] but we wanted to encourage patients to give up this habit that can perpetuate,” hospital manager Catalin Rotea said. Some patients, however, are suspicious of the initiative and don’t think posters can change old habits. The National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) presented an analysis last May, which revealed that many of the structural and functional areas of the public healthcare system are affected by corruption. The analysis showed, among other things, that while patients make “informal payments for the medical act to be performed,” bribes are also made for various other medical checks, like the one evaluating a person’s ability for work. newsroom@romania-insider.com (photo source: Shutterstock)