Bucharest hospital manager fired after media investigation
Bucharest mayor Gabriela Firea dismissed Florin Secureanu (the one holding the trophy), the manager of the public hospital Malaxa, on November 29, after a journalistic investigation revealed that he used the hospital’s money for illegal expenses, including jewelry purchases for his girlfriend.
The Malaxa hospital is under the administration of the Bucharest City Hall.
The National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) started an inquiry on Tuesday morning, November 29, and a team of prosecutors went to the headquarters of the Malaxa hospital to lift internal documents needed for the investigation.
The Prime Minister’s Control Body had initiated an investigation one day before, on November 28, in the same case, but the action had to cease, as it would have overlapped with the investigation of DNA, said Bucharest mayor Gabriela Firea, according to Mediafax.
Florin Secureanu went on leave after the journalistic investigation started. “He is hiding both from the representatives of the City Hall and from those of the Administration of Hospitals and Medical Services,” Firea said.
According to the documents presented by local investigation journalism website Tolo.ro, the Malaxa Hospital concluded ten contracts with a jewelry company called Yarouse Jewellery for cleaning medical gynecology instruments. The hospital apparently paid EUR 9,000 to the jewelry firm between June 2013 and November last year.
The contracts were concluded between the Malaxa hospital, represented by Florin Secureanu, and Yarouse Jewellery, represented by Simona Trandafir. According to sources within the hospital quoted by Tolo.ro, the contracts were fake and were used to hide the jewelry purchases that Secureanu made for his girlfriend with the hospital’s money.
The investigation by Tolo.ro also showed that the hospital paid some RON 20,000 (EUR 4,400) to cover the roaming costs of the manager’s girlfriend while she was on a trip in Croatia. Florin Secureanu’s girlfriend is a young woman named Eugenia Chiriac, but apparently everyone at the hospital knows her as “Vrabi” (little sparrow).
Tolo.ro also presented other expenses Secureanu made from the hospital’s money for his relatives, including a EUR 5,500 heart surgery at a private hospital for his girlfriend’s aunt. The journalists also posted video recordings in which the hospital manager is shown bullying a hospital employee.
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editor@romania-insider.com
(Photo source: spitalmalaxa.ro)
