3 June 2016
Dan Condrea was a successful antiseptic salesman in Romania until last month. He made a healthy income by supplying antiseptic solutions to hospitals through his company Hexi Pharma. All that came to an end on 22 May 2016 when he drove his car at high speed into a tree to end his life. Police said that there was no attempt to apply brake when the car was running at a speed of 60 miles per hour. It took over a week to confirm that it was Condrea’s body.
A team of journalists revealed that Hexi Pharma had been diluting its disinfectants, sometimes only one tenth of the concentration indicated on the label. It came to the notice of the journalists, when a fire broke out in a nightclub which violated safety regulations and 27 people died and 37 who were admitted to the hospital died from infections picked up from the hospital.
This is not in the scale of corruption in India or China where the amounts can run into billions of dollars. But the damage done in irreparable.
Hexi Pharma was supplying disinfectants to 350 hospitals. How was Hexi Pharma able to get this number of hospitals to supply. The journalists say that Hexi Pharma paid 30% cut on the contracts to doctors and hospital administration. Disinfectants were highly marked up in prices. Hexi Pharma has been supplying to the hospital for over 9 years.
The health minister who played down the incident had to finally tender his resignation.
Some of the candidates standing for office in Romania’s local elections on Sunday (5 June 2016) are under corruption investigations. Many others have not been properly screened for corruption. About a third of the 350 local officials under investigation or sent to trial since 2012 are running for the election. Local administrations have an overall budget of 16 billion US dollars. There is enough for corruption.
It is the lack of awareness and the disinterest of public that give rise to corruption. Every citizen must be concerned about corruption in his or her country.
