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Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu announced on Sunday the start of urgent controls in all care centres for children, the elderly and people with disabilities.
"First of all, all centres for children, the elderly and people with disabilities, state-owned or private, must be checked and all licenses reviewed. The deadline will be very short, one week, under the coordination of the prefects," said the prime minister after a working meeting with several ministers and heads of institutions, following the investigation into the case of elderly people tortured in nursing homes.
He asked the authorities for "zero tolerance towards the criminal groups that robbed these totally helpless people" and announced that he and the minister of Justice had agreed to make the resolution of these cases a top priority.
"Thirdly, I make an appeal to all religious institutions in Romania, first of all to the Orthodox Church and to NGOs working in the social field. We need your involvement in everything related to the social side, assistance primarily for vulnerable people. The events that took place in these nursing homes of horror have shown us a total dehumanization of some individuals that I cannot call people," said prime minister Marcel Ciolacu.
The prime minister said that the Ministry of Labour will start discussions on Monday with all representatives of the religious institutions and NGOs for agreements on involvement in this activity.
"The system must be changed. It is unacceptable to have a lot of control institutions passing the blame to each other. The whole system needs to be rethought, from authorisation, monitoring and control, who authorises and what the conditions for authorisation are, who monitors, what they monitor, clear intervals and procedures, who conducts checks and what they check. That is why I want to clarify this system from a legislative point of view so that there are no loopholes for anyone," Ciolacu said.
In his opinion, everyone must fulfil their duties, those who do not do so must be held accountable "and those who do not understand to do their job should go home".
"I don't want any more running away from responsibility, I want a coherent system with clear rules in this area. We are actually talking about the most vulnerable people: children, the elderly and people with disabilities," said the prime minister.
Marcel Ciolacu voiced his conviction that all the necessary legislative changes will be made in the next parliamentary session, following discussions with all the social partners.
According to a Government press release, the discussions on Sunday were attended by the minister of Labour and Social Solidarity, Marius Budai, the minister of Justice, Alina Gorghiu, the minister of Health, Alexandru Rafila, the minister of Development, Public Works and Administration, Adrian-Ioan Vestea, the secretary of state with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Bogdan Despescu, as well as representatives of Sanitary Veterinary Authority (ANSVSA), Consumer Protection Agency (ANPC) and the State Sanitary Inspection.AGERPRES
