Less than 5% of the samples taken from public healthcare units in Romania to check for the efficiency of the disinfectants used to combat hospital germs have come out nonconforming, health minister Patriciu-Achimas Cadariu announced on Wednesday, May 4.

Over 3,500 samples have been collected from local hospitals in the last week to check if the antiseptic products used in these hospitals do a proper job in killing dangerous hospital germs. Only about 150 of the samples showed problems, Cadariu said. He added that the patients treated in Romanian hospitals were safe.

The tests have been carried out by the hospitals’ own labs or by the Public Health Department units.

The health ministry also said that such tests have been made on a regular basis this year and where the results signaled problems the use of the respective disinfectants has been suspended until the end of the investigation.

The Health Ministry publicly announced these results after an investigation started by a group of journalists from sports newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor, led by Catalin Tolontan, has revealed that hundreds of hospitals in Romania have been buying diluted disinfectants from a local firm for years.

The substances sold by local disinfectant producer Hexi Pharma had concentrations up to ten times lower compared to those mentioned on the labels, thus being more ineffective in killing germs and posing infection risks for patients treated in the hospitals that used them, the journalistic investigation showed. Moreover, the products were certified by a local laboratory that was controlled by Hexi Pharma's owner.

Hexi Pharma’s owner, Romanian businessman Vlad Condrea, also used offshore firms registered in Cyprus to hide his profits from selling diluted disinfectants. Some of those profits have been used to pay off hospital managers and heads of acquisitions who purchased disinfectants from Hexi Pharma and conformity inspectors, according to Catalin Tolontan’s investigation.

One of Hexi Pharma’s competitors filed a complaint with Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), in 2012, in which it signaled several rigged public tenders carried out by local hospitals that only bought disinfectants from Condrea’s firm. DNA passed the case to a local prosecutor’s office in Bucharest, which closed the investigation.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Ministerul Sanatatii on Facebook)