Fake vaccination papers, weddings with God knows how many people, vaccines poured into taps, while the number of daily deaths breaks records, and there are no free intensive care beds in all of Romania.
The coronavirus is crushing Romania more and more mercilessly: around 15,000 new cases are diagnosed every day, and 16,743 covid patients were registered from Monday to Tuesday. The positivity rate is extremely high, every fourth person tested is confirmed to have covid. According to Monday's data, there are 147,397 confirmed active cases across the country, of course the real number is several times this number. The number of deaths is also constantly increasing, an average of two hundred people die every day. This sad record was also broken on Tuesday, as 442 people died in connection with the epidemic in the course of 24 days.
The healthcare system has drifted to the brink of collapse, according to Monday's data, 16,981 people need hospital treatment, of whom, according to Tuesday's data, 1,667 are in intensive care units. Practically, there are no free intensive care beds in the entire country, so the patients without care await their fate in the corridors and in the ambulances in front of the hospitals. The problem is that
the leave of health workers is already suspended,
they will certainly do the same with the staff of the disaster management in the next thirty days - Főtér.ro . In addition, the fifth-year emergency and intensive care resident doctors who would have started their specialist medical exams in October will appear before the examination boards in December, but other trainings will also be postponed until December.
The reason why the delta variant subjugated our neighbors in this way is clearly the low vaccination rate, currently 19.3 million in Romania
34 percent of the vaccinable population received at least one dose of vaccine,
and in August, the vaccination rate among healthcare workers was 54 percent, and among doctors 67 percent. With this number, Romania has become one of the leaders of the Union in terms of immunization against the coronavirus.
Ignorance and indifference
The situation is dramatic, but people's indifference and carelessness show that they still don't understand how big the problem is, Anna Tusa, a resident doctor in Marosvásárhely, tells our newspaper. Anna, who has a week before her professional exam, has not yet been notified that she has to go to the test at a different time, but her friend has already. "Fake vaccination papers, weddings for God knows how many people, baptisms, people act as if nothing is happening, even though what we are going through is terrible," he points out in despair. As he adds,
it is not uncommon for patients in a serious condition to beg for the vaccine on the hospital bed, but then, as he puts it, it is raining.
Romania is even more affected by the problem, which affects all other countries together with Hungary, that the main cause of anti-vaccination is ignorance and the uncontrollable spread of false information and fake news, not only in social media, but often in the news as well. According to the resident, it is unsustainable that anyone can post anything on a social media site, and that others can share it mindlessly and with impunity. "I fought a battle of wits for a while," he says, "I tried to explain to people that they should not believe the fake news spreading on social media, I explained in detail what was in the vaccine, but for such amazing nonsense as the vaccine modifies people's DNA, and ten in a year we will all die, I just can't say anything anymore," he blurts out.
"Stubborn, obnoxious, Székely mentality"
According to the future internist, it is incredibly annoying that there is a tool available: the vaccine, which can be used to stop the epidemic, but we don't use it, because instead of people believing the doctors, they believe the fake news. "Stubborn, blindfolded, Székely mentality: they are not inoculated," he adds. In his opinion, if it weren't for social networking sites and video sharing sites, everyone would have been vaccinated a long time ago.
"What I'm going to say is going to be very ugly, but freedom of the press must die!"
- he says without hiding his indignation.
It is a huge problem that in Romania, the population is not sufficiently informed about either the coronavirus or the vaccination. According to Romanian press reports in recent days, the coordinator of the vaccination campaign was able to state that they did not receive enough resources to counter the fake news. "How can an expert say that?" - asks Anna Tusa in a hushed voice, adding that all professional information is public, anyone can access it, you just need to know where to read it.
Fake vaccine papers, vaccine poured down the drain
Detours are not uncommon either: you often hear about fake vaccination papers. "They would rather pay a lot of money for fake certificates than get vaccinated for free," says Anna Tusa, adding that this is especially typical of young people. Fake vaccination papers are not only dangerous because of the spread of the epidemic, he points out, but also because they influence vital statistical data and, with it, the research that is based on them. In addition to fake vaccination papers, they also know of a case where they tried to increase the vaccination rate by pouring vaccines down the drain.
Back in September, the Romanian Ministry of Health announced that vaccination should be made mandatory among healthcare workers, but as is known, it was rejected. Now the issue is back on the agenda, but due to the government crisis, the decision-makers' hands are tied for the time being. In this regard, Anna Tusa says that she fully agrees with the mandatory vaccination, fortunately her colleagues all requested the vaccine. "This can be seen, while at this time last year a leaky covid infected everyone from the sick bay through the nurse to the doctor, similar cases have been happening in the past few days, but
only two of my colleagues were infected, but since they were vaccinated, they also just whistled through the two weeks".
Medical students: discrimination
Among healthcare workers, the mandatory vaccination plan caused a great uproar when it was suggested that students could not enter universities without vaccination. "First-year medical students marched in front of the university saying that this is discrimination. I was so upset!” says the resident. He adds, "if this is how future doctors approach it, what should we expect from people?"
Hungarian help
As Mandiner also reported , last weekend Péter Szijjártó offered Hungary's help in caring for coronavirus patients in a letter. At that time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed us that: "negotiations between the Romanian and Hungarian sides about the specific form of assistance are still taking place". In relation to this, Anna Tusa does not know any more, as she says that this would not be the first Hungarian help, as they have already received ventilators and medicines. Regarding protective equipment, he says that luckily we always had enough, but not a single Romanian hospital is struggling with a shortage.
The resident who spoke to our paper works in internal medicine at the hospital in Marosvásárhely, the department is on the same level as cardiology and nephrology. Currently, they only treat non-covid patients, as he says,
"if we're lucky, we can keep this, but if not, we'll fall too."
As he says, he is very afraid that, like in the spring, they will have to treat covid and non-covid patients at the same time. He reveals that there was a time when he felt he couldn't take it anymore. "Every day someone died while on duty. In such cases, the next of kin must be called and informed of the death after two hours at the latest. There's a big scream at the end of the phone, it can't be, I spoke to him in the morning!" The resident adds that, unfortunately, covid is like that, they have had many cases where they were planning to discharge the patient, when he relapsed shortly after and lost his life.
"I felt like I couldn't call more people with news of a death," she says in a choked voice, adding that
"people think we doctors are killers
because who knows what we put in the vaccine, and anyway there is no covid, we just invented it". When we ask what helped him to get out of this horrible state of mind, he says that he cannot imagine doing anything else, that the only option for him is healing, and even though he was very down many times, this sense of vocation always gave him strength. That's how it is now.
Illustration: life.hu
