Physician Adriana Nica, former Bucharest mayor Sorin Oprescu's life partner, was appointed interim manager of the Bucharest University Hospital without having to pass a selection procedure, local investigation blog Tolo.ro reported. She was appointed in this position through a decision signed by health minister Florin Bodog.

Nica’s appointment comes only weeks after the Romanian Senate rejected an emergency ordinance adopted by the Dacian Ciolos cabinet which prohibited hospital managers from holding leadership positions in political parties. The ordinance also outlined a series of anti-nepotism measures, local Mediafax reports.

An initiative of former Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu, the ordinance attempted to implement selection processes not only for the hospital manager job but also for the medical director and financial director position, with a focus on management projects open to stakeholders. It planed to combat nepotism by not allowing hospital managers to hire their relatives as managers or department heads. A final vote on the ordinance will take place in the Chamber of Deputies.

Minister Bodog told News.ro that he appointed Adriana Nica after consulting with his councilors, whose only proposal she was. The University Hospital in Bucharest was being run by its medical director Dragoş Davitoiu, who took on the manager attributions after the previous manager, Catalin Carstoiu, was elected dean of the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest. Davitoiu is the medical director of the University Hospital after winning the selection process for this position.

The medical staff of the hospital is contesting the new manager appointment, according to Tolo.ro. Adriana Nica's colleagues claim that she only has a light medical activity and "a semblance of scientific activity.

Adriana Nica graduated from the Carol Davila University of Medicine in 2004, and starting with 2005 she was a resident physician at the University Hospital in Bucharest, Tolo.to reported. Between 2006 and 2010 she was a resident physician in the ATI (Anesthesia and Intensive Care) unit of the University Hospital. From 2010 to 2015 she worked as a specialist physician in the same unit. From 2009 to 2015 she was a junior lecturer at the Carol Davila University. Starting with 2015 she is an assistant lecturer at the Carol Davila University, and head of the ATI unit at the University Hospital. She earned her PhD in 2015.

According to reports by Tolo.ro, she published in 2016 four books as coordinator. One of them was authored by Sorin Oprescu. She co-authored two books in 2016, and in 2015 and 2016 she published a scientific paper every three weeks, according to the same source. She defended her 2015 PhD to Nicolae Banicioiu and Dorel Sandesc, a former minister and state secretary in the Ponta government. The Gazeta Sporturilor journalists contacted Nica several times on Saturday but she declined to comment on her appointment.

Several Bucharest public hospitals made the headlines last year after a series of investigations showed a corruption burdened and under-performing public healthcare system, and amounted to a revival of investigative journalism in Romania. One of the most important investigations, carried out by journalist Catalin Tolontan and his small team, showed that the some of the victims who survived the Colectiv fire were killed by nosocomial infections.

According to reports by Gazeta Sporturilor, Adriana Nica resigned from her position as head of the ATI 2 at the University Hospital on October 30 2015, the day of the Colectiv fire. She returned to the hospital in 2016, when former Bucharest mayor Oprescu also returned, after getting back his license to practice.

Sorin Oprescu, a surgeon who ran the Bucharest University Hospital between 1994 and 2006, was placed under judicial control after a 2015 arrest for bribery, which also led to his suspension from the position of Bucharest mayor. According to the Anticorruption Directorate DNA, Oprescu was part of a very well organized group within the public administration that asked companies to pay bribes in order to get public contracts from various authorities subordinated to Bucharest’s City Hall. Oprescu was first elected Bucharest mayor in 2008, as an independent, but with strong support from the Social Democratic Party (PSD), whose member he had previously been. He was reelected in 2012.

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editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Spitalul Universitar de Urgenta Bucuresti – SUUB Facebook Page)