In Romania, as recently large in the media, disastrous conditions rule in the health service. In the middle of October it was reported that within one day in Romania alone more humans at Corona died than in the entire EU in same period. 574 people died within 24 hours! The talk is rightly of "apocalyptic", but it is crocodile tears, which are now shed, especially in EU countries such as Germany, Austria, France, or Belgium.
In mid-October, Romania was the country with the highest mortality rate in the world. Patients were treated in corridors, containers, tents and ambulances. The WHO promised help in the form of goods, as well as help to increase vaccination preparedness.
Not long ago, "Romania" made headlines in Austria, as it was feared that the Romanian nurses needed in Austria would not be able to enter the country due to the pandemic. The health system in Romania, not only does not serve the Romanian population, it is plundered directly and indirectly by other, imperialistic states. The past years show this very clearly: since 2007, since Romania joined the EU, thousands of doctors, nurses and medical staff have migrated abroad - often to France, Germany, Austria, Belgium. 25,000 doctors have left Romania to work abroad in the last 10 years, plus 28,000 nurses. Many leave the country because of the poor pay, in the imperialist countries they earn 10 to 20 times as much, but still less than the local professionals.
In the Romanian city of Cluj, where there is the largest university, thousands of doctors are trained every year - only to be taken abroad. Few remain in Romania, with up to 3,500 trained doctors leaving the country each year. This alone has resulted in a chronic understaffing of personnel and a lack of medical care for the population. The situation is no different with nursing staff: Hundreds of thousands work abroad, and for years there has been chronic understaffing in domestic hospitals. The average age of doctors is 60!
These conditions existed even before the outbreak of the covid pandemic, and those countries that are now appalled profited well from it. They have skilled workers at their disposal, where they had no costs for training, which they can pay lower wages and use additionally to depress wages. The attention now being focused so strongly on the vaccination issue in Romania has no other purpose than to blur this fact. The health care system has been plundered and cut to the bone; the catastrophe did not begin with Covid. The pandemic, however, led naturally to the collapse and who has to pay a big blood toll are the Romanian masses!
Rightly, they took to the streets again and again in the past months. Most recently, there were large mass protests in April, directed especially against repressive measures that do not at all serve public health.
The catastrophic situation has been known since the beginning of the pandemic, and a multitude of difficulties arose; hundreds of thousands of people died because they could not be cared for. But while in Romania the situation was getting worse, the concern of the imperialists was how to continue to withdraw caregivers despite lockdowns and travel restrictions. This is the true face of "cohesion" in the EU! This is why it is so urgent that the oppressed and exploited stand shoulder to shoulder, unite firmly in internationalism!
