A post shared by Bucharest mayor Gabriela Firea on her personal Facebook account has sparked a conflict between the mayor and the representatives of the local NGO Daruieste Viata, which is building the first hospital in Romania financed from private donations.

The Facebook post, created by local fashion designer Dana Budeanu, criticizes the NGO for asking health minister Sorina Pintea to donate radiotherapy equipment to the new hospital, which will treat children with cancer. “Buy one from the EUR 35 million donated!” Budeanu says in the post, which uses a rather offensive language.

Oana Gheorghiu and Carmen Uscatu, the representatives of the NGO, criticized Firea for sharing this post, which mocks the involvement and support shown by over 260,000 Romanians who donated for this project. “What kind of a person must you be to mock the people’s involvement and the cause of the children with cancer, while you wear crosses and declare yourself a believer and while you have had billions under management and have done nothing,” reads the post by Oana Gheorghiu.

Gabriela Firea didn’t leave this unanswered. In an interview with Digi24 TV, Firea accused Oana Gheorghiu and Carmen Uscatu of being an interface of former health minister Vlad Voiculescu, the candidate of PLUS party in the elections for mayor of Bucharest next year. “Do you find it normal that these serious cases of sick children to be brought into the political dispute by the coordinator of this NGO, as part of his electoral campaign?” Firea said. “You act as if you don’t know who runs this NGO. Mr. Voiculescu, the former health minister in the Ciolos Government, a minister who opposed transplants in Romania. The ladies are just the interface,” the mayor said, according to Mediafax.

Firea also said that she contributed to the project of this hospital by allowing the NGO to use a land plot belonging to the municipality, which is worth EUR 1 million. “I don’t like serious omissions. I couldn’t have insulted the contributors and sponsors of this hospital because I, as Bucharest mayor, contributed as well,” she said, adding that those who claim the hospital is built exclusively from private funds forget to mention the City Hall’s contribution.

Former health minister Vlad Voiculescu, who has launched initiatives such as MagiCAMP, MagicHOME, and MagicHELP, to help children with cancer and their families, rejected Firea’s accusations that he is the “patron” of the Daruieste Viata Association.

Oana Gheorghiu also reacted saying that mayor Firea is the one who brought the sick children into a political dispute. “I don’t know why Ms. Gabriela Firea says Vlad Voiculescu is behind us. She will have to bring the proof she invokes and lay them on the table, because these lies can’t go on,” Gheorghiu told Digi24. She also asked prime minister Viorica Dancila to intervene and clarify the “miserable attack” of the Health Ministry against the hospital project and Gabriela Firea’s attack as well.

The Daruieste Viata Association, founded by Oana Gheorghiu and Carmen Uscatu, initiated the project of building a hospital for children with cancer in 2015. The construction of the hospital started in December 2017 and should be completed in June 2020. The project is estimated at EUR 26 million, of which EUR 16 million covers the construction and EUR 10 million – the medical equipment. The NGO has raised EUR 15 million from over 1,700 companies and 260,000 individual donors for this project, making this the largest initiative of this kind in Romania.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Gabriela Firea Facebook page)