October 30, 2024, marks 9 years since the Colectiv club fire that killed 64 people and left many others injured. Despite numerous promises, Romanian authorities have not been able to build a modern, major medical unit to treat major burn victims. What is worse, the legacy of Colectiv is fading.

The Colectiv club in Bucharest, which functioned on the premises of the former Pionierul factory and was one of the most popular clubs in the capital, burned down during a concert of local rock band Goodbye to Gravity on October 30, 2015. There were hundreds of people in the club that night, way more than its normal capacity. The tragedy sparked a series of street protests in Bucharest and the country under the slogan #CoruptiaUcide (Corruption Kills), as well as numerous investigations into the club, its owners, the on-site responders, and local officials. 

Nine years later, Romania still has no major burn medical facilities, as promised by the authorities. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Health approved an Ordinance, which doctors and survivors of the 2015 fire say allows existing medical structures in the country to become burn units by lowering standards. As a result, these units lack the resources and medical performance necessary to care for these patients. 

The Memory of Colectiv

64 young people died in the fire on October 30, 2015 - 27 that night and the rest in hospitals in the following weeks due to preventable hospital-borne infections. The number of dead increased almost daily following the fire, and so did protests targeting the government led by Victor Ponta at that time.

Aside from the dead, 150 people were injured, and most were left permanently disfigured. In the summer of 2017, nearly two years after the fire, one survivor committed suicide. 

“No one talks about Colectiv anymore. Fewer people seek us out. And there is no information on what’s happening to burn patients. Last week, a young man was electrocuted in Iași. No one knows what happened to him. Was he transferred [abroad]? Wasn’t he?” Eugen Iancu, who lost his 22-year-old son in the Colectiv fire, told HotNews.

Iancu's son Alexandru died three weeks after the fire, at a hospital in Bucharest, with five nosocomial infections, according to his father. He was the 59th victim.

After his son’s death, Eugen Iancu founded the Colectiv GTG 3010 Association, aiming to monitor investigations following the tragedy and support survivors. 

Sentences and Acquittals 

In 2022, nearly 7 years after the tragedy, the Bucharest Court of Appeal issued a final sentence in the Colectiv 1 case, addressing the causes of the fire and identifying those responsible. Among those convicted were Cristian Popescu Piedone, former mayor of District 4. He was acquitted in 2023 after serving a year and a month, and took up his job as mayor of District 5 again. His son is now the mayor of the same district, and he is running for a seat in Parliament on the lists of the Social Democratic Party (PSD). 

The three owners of the Colectiv club received sentences of 11 years, eight years, and six years, the pyrotechnician received a sentence of six years and ten months, and the two firefighters from ISU Bucharest each received sentences of eight years and eight months.

In June of this case, the second Colectiv case - targeting former Social Democratic health minister Nicolae Bănicioiu and hospital managers accused of not transferring burn victims abroad - was dismissed by prosecutors.

Legislative Changes

According to legislation in force until April this year, hospitals in Romania did not have wards that met legal standards for safely treating severe burn patients. That same month, the Ministry of Health published an Order in the Official Gazette, allowing existing medical structures to become burn units 'on paper,' without having the resources or medical capability required to care for burn patients. 

Medical experts and survivors say that the government is trying to make it look like it made progress with the treatment of burn victims without actually making any changes in reality. 

“We are in a country where, after 9 years, there isn’t even one burn unit! Not one. Not even a center dedicated to severe burns. How is it possible to do nothing in 9 years?” asks Eugen Iancu. “If a fire with 10 victims happened today, we’d be just as unprepared: we have nowhere to admit them. If tomorrow a politician’s car caught fire with their child inside, in the first two hours, they’d reach a Romanian hospital filled with bacteria,” he adds.

After the fire, survivors and families of the deceased received compensation totaling EUR 60 million paid from the government’s reserve fund. This year, however, they started receiving notifications indicating that ISU, the Romanian General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, filed a lawsuit against them to recover fees given to executors. 

Nine Years, Few Changes

Approximately 10,000 patients visit emergency rooms in Romanian hospitals each year for burn injuries, and around 4,000 cases require hospitalization for specialized monitoring and treatment, according to an official report from the Ministry of Health, prepared in 2021 and reviewed by HotNews.ro.

Around 1,400–1,500 of these patients are cases of medium to severe burns, requiring hospital care for more than two weeks, followed by specialized medical rehabilitation services, which are not available in Romania. The number of deaths from burn injuries is approximately 200 per year, according to official data.

Currently, three burn centers are under construction in Romania: in Timișoara and Târgu Mureș (both for adult patients) and one at Grigore Alexandrescu Children’s Hospital in Bucharest (for children). Last year, Minister of Health Alexandru Rafila declared that the centers would be ready in 2025.

Today, the same as last year, Romania officially has 34 hospital beds for patients with major burns, 10 of which are for children. However, the reality of the matter is still in question.

radu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Inquam Photos | Florin Cornel)