In Romania, a cardiologist and four other doctors are at the heart of a scandal. They are suspected of having fraudulently removed heart implants from dead people to reuse them on patients, the Bucharest prosecutor’s office said.
Dan Tesloianu, cardiologist employed at the hospital of Iasi, was placed in pre-trial detention on Saturday evening for abuse of power and corruption by order of the Bucharest court, according to a press release from the prosecution. He is accused of having, between 2017 and 2022, endangered the lives of his patients by illegally using some 238 heart implants of unknown origin, some of which had been removed from corpses.
False diagnoses
The cardiologist is also suspected of having supervised a network including at least four other doctors who would have provided him with the implants without the approval of the patients or their families. “The placement of these heart implants was, for a large part of the interventions, not necessary and was triggered after false diagnoses” or treatment causing specific symptoms, specifies the press release from the prosecution.
Inquiries have been launched in several regions against “doctors who have carried out surgical operations in violation of the procedures and rules relating to the use of cardiac implants”. Nine people were heard by the courts.
Romania is the country which, within the European Union which it joined in 2007, devotes the smallest part of its budget to the health system, which has been splashed by multiple corruption scandals in recent years. .