Romania will urgently change its legislation on public purchases in the healthcare sector to ensure a more efficient control on the products acquired by local hospitals, President Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos agreed on Friday.

The two officials agreed to adopt a new set of norms for controlling and testing the disinfectants and sanitation conditions in the hospitals, to avoid another disinfectant scandal. They also decided that the public purchase law in the healthcare sector needed to be changed to allow a better quality control of the products purchased by local hospitals, the Presidency announced.

The President and Prime Minister took these decisions after the Hexi Pharma diluted hospital disinfectants scandal. A journalistic investigation revealed two weeks ago that local hospitals have been buying diluted disinfectants from local producer Hexi Pharma for years and, by using them, have put the patients’ safety at risk.

The Government-ordered tests showed that indeed the disinfectants Hexi Pharma sold were highly diluted. The company closed its activity last week and the prosecutors started a criminal investigation against it.

editor@romania-insider.com