Romanian doctors issue ‘cry of despair’ amid coronavirus surge
- The country’s health care system has ‘reached the limit’, and low vaccination rates reveal a ‘failure of trust’, medical workers say in an open letter
- On Tuesday, Romania reported daily pandemic records of nearly 17,000 new confirmed cases and 442 deaths
Romanian doctors sent an open letter on Wednesday titled “a cry of despair” as the country’s overwhelmed and deteriorated health care system copes with a record-setting surge of coronavirus infections and deaths.
The College of Physicians of Bucharest, a non-governmental organisation representing doctors in Romania’s capital, said in a letter addressed to Romanians that the medical system has “reached the limit” and that low vaccination rates reveal a “failure of trust” between doctors and the population.
“We are desperate because every day we lose hundreds of patients who die in Romanian hospitals,” the letter reads.
“We are desperate, because, unfortunately, we have heard too many times: I can’t breathe … I’m not vaccinated.”
Romania, a country of 19 million people, is the European Union member nation with the population second-least vaccinated against Covid-19.