Hundreds of protesters descend on Romania’s health ministry after deadly fire engulfs Covid hospital

Protest organised by new right-wing political party

Demonstrators demanded Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis, the health minister and the head of emergencies step down (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Hundreds of protesters descended on Romania's health ministry in the wake of a deadly fire at one of the country’s major hospitals for Covid patients which claimed at least five lives.

Demonstrators demanded Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis, the health minister and the head of emergencies step down.

The inferno erupted early on Friday on the ground floor of the Matei Bals hospital in the capital of Bucharest - with more than 100 people forced to evacuate. In the past three months, there have been three hospital fires in Romania.

Almost 7,700 coronavirus patients are admitted at Matei Bals, which is one of the biggest hospitals in the city.

The protest was organised by the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), a new right-wing political party which is opposed to same-sex marriage. Its leaders have supported Orthodox clerics who broke social distancing rules to hold religious ceremonies.

Referring to the time since communism ended, AUR co-president George Simion said: “We are out of tears and out of patience after 31 years in which we paid taxes and got nothing in return.

“Not a single new hospital was built in Romania in 31 years. The money was stolen from the Romanian medical system.”

Mr Simion said the party and its supporters “want the resignation of those responsible”, naming health minister Vlad Voiculescu and department of emergency situations head Raed Arafat.

He said the AUR would donate its state financing to contribute to the construction of a new hospital.

Protesters at Saturday's demonstration chanted: “We don't want to be led by thieves,” and also called for President Klaus Iohannis to resign.

Mr Voiculescu, the health minister, said the cause of Friday's fire is not yet known and an investigation is ongoing.

He said: “We are waiting for the results for a number of reasons. One is to find out who is responsible, but most importantly, we need to learn the lessons that we need to learn.

“If we know the initial cause of this, we will know what measures need to be prioritized in order to prevent such things from happening again.”

The minister agreed that Romania needs to improve its medical infrastructure and said new hospitals will be constructed.

He added: “There is no magical solution for turning an old building into a new one. We need new hospitals.”

Before the fire at the Matei Bals hospital, a November blaze in a Covid-19 intensive care unit in north Romania killed 10 people, and another at a psychiatric hospital in the same region killed one person in December.

Romania recently recorded its first case of the British variant of Covid-19 in a 27-year-old woman from the southern county of Giurgiu who had not left the country recently.

While earlier in the month, Romania issued a warning that its Pfizer-Biontech vaccine stocks could have almost disappeared by the end of February’s first week.

Additional reporting by wires