In a broader case involving the deaths of 17, Romanian prosecutors said on Wednesday that they had detained two hospital doctors on suspicion of killing a patient by cutting back on life-saving blood pressure medicine.
In April, a staff member at Bucharest's St. Pantelimon Clinical Emergency Hospital issued a public warning, stating that 17 patients passed away in intensive care over the course of four days when their medicine was stopped.
At the time, the doctors' association and health ministry claimed they could not discover any proof linking medical negligence and that the high number of deaths was an anomaly.
On Wednesday, two doctors were placed into temporary custody by prosecutors as part of a criminal inquiry into the death of a 54-year-old patient.
The inquiry is still on. In addition, a nurse was taken into custody for allegedly faking testimony.
The two doctors "conceived and executed a plan to suddenly reduce the dosage of noradrenaline, an essential medication to maintain blood pressure in intensive care, in order to ... trigger the death of patients who needed intensive care but who the accused thought should not be kept alive," said the prosecutors in a statement.
One of the least developed healthcare systems in the EU, Romania has struggled with political control, corruption, and inadequate oversight.
Tens of thousands of doctors and nurses have left the state, which spends the least on healthcare in the EU and has only constructed one hospital in the last thirty years.
(Input from various sources)
(Rehash/Priyanka Pandey)
