Patients' organisations call for measures to ensure patients' rights not violated

The Coalition of Romania's Chronically Ill Patient Organisations (COPAC) is sounding the alarm that only emergencies are still admitted to hospitals, calling on the Ministry of Health to take urgent measures "to stop patients' rights being violated." "The Coalition of Romania's Chronically Ill Patient Organisations is sounding the alarm over the continuing situation of patients' rights being violated. Even if in other areas things have been relaxed, the same is not happening in the health system," according to a statement from COPAC released on Thursday. The coalition mentions that working on signals it received, it has compiled a list of violations of patients' rights: only emergencies are admitted to hospitals; patients are postponed until after June 15; patients' relatives are not allowed access to medical facilities not even in special cases that are justified (people who cannot move, births, etc.); fathers cannot see their children even if they take a COVID test, and some mothers are waiting desperately for their little ones as they can only see them after the test results come out. "Patients are forced into unwarranted trips to get their treatments (...), patients with infectious diseases (tuberculosis, HIV, hepatitis) do not have access to the hospitals where they were treated, as the hospitals now are COVID or support hospitals," says COPAC. The list prepared by COPAC also includes the violation of the confidentiality of the diagnosis of patients who died of COVID, by mentioning diagnoses such as HIV, schizophrenia, even after death. "While in March, when we did not know the exact extent of the pandemic, such measures were justified, they must be halted now," according to the statement. COPAC Chairman Radu Ganescu said the officials must understand that they have to manage a healthcare system with many patients and not only the COVID ones. "As usual, we find ourselves in an extreme situation: we forbid any right and we never think about the well-being of patients. It seems that we have lost both common sense and any trace of humanity in certain cases, and we, as representatives of patients, no longer tolerate such violations of patients' rights and we urgently ask you to take measures to correct these things, which in June 2020 are no longer justified," said Ganescu. COPAC is also asking the Ombudsman to take action. "COPAC is calling on the Ministry of Health to take urgent measures to prevent the violation of patients' rights by adopting regulations that will find solutions to these problems," the statement also reads. AGERPRES (RO - author: Iulia Carciog, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)