Top emergency management official calls acceptable Romanian health system's coping with pandemic

Head of the Emergency Management Department (DSU) Raed Arafat said on Monday evening that the way the Romanian healthcare system has coped with the COVID-19 pandemic is acceptable, given the existing infrastructure.

The remarks were made at a news conference at the Government House, where Arafat was asked whether or not incidents such as the one at the mobile intensive care Unit of the Victor Babes Hospital could make people afraid of the way oxygen is administered in hospitals.

"In terms of the number of patients who are treated and everything that has been, I don't know of incidents that are so repetitive. We really had tragedies, we had Piatra Neamt, we had them at Bals, we had situations, but at the same time we cannot deny that the system has saved many lives, and in mortality terms, however, I believe that the system has coped very well. And I tell you: Romania, given the system it had and has, how Romania has coped when push comes to shove, is a way that is very, let's say, acceptable, for the level of the system, for the infrastructure that is in the system, for the conditions in which the system is. Romania has made every possible effort to be able to overcome as correctly as possible," said Arafat.

He pointed out that in order to reduce the risk of overcrowding intensive care units, it is important that people with COVID-19 symptoms go to the hospital early in the disease, not when they can no longer breathe.