The General Mayor of Bucharest, Gabriela Firea, said on Thursday night for the private television Romania TV that at the moment only "VIPs" benefit from blood plasma for the treatment of COVID-19 infections, while "normal people, ordinary citizens do not benefit from, because they do not exist" and rejected the accusations against the project adopted by the General Council regarding the granting of incentives to plasma donors.
She added that the project would save people, noting that humanitarian plasma can be donated and that donors do not have to benefit from these incentives, stressing that there are people who have paid for the analyses necessary for plasma donation themselves and it is normal for the Romanian state to provide these incentives.
The project "Donate plasma, save life", which provides for financial support of 4,800 lei (rd 1,000 euro) to each beneficiary, in the form of a voucher package, was adopted on Thursday by the General Council of the Capital, 33 -to- 5 and 7 abstentions.
The programme is addressed to a number of 500 beneficiaries with a permanent residence or residence visa in Bucharest, obtained at least 6 months before the application for joining the project. The project budget is 2.4 million lei and it will run during 2020, with the possibility of extension, on the basis of a regulation to be drawn up within 10 days of the approval of the programme.
The leader of the USR (Save Romania Union)'s municipal councillors, Ana Ciceala, said on Thursday that the project is "illegal" and "immoral".