Ombudsman Mihail Cotorobai requests to immediately stop any form of revenge on healthcare workers who made revelations about the quality and insufficiency of protective equipment and devices for medical staff. He recommends to swiftly and efficiently investigate the revelations about the quality of medical devices and to take measures to provide the medical personnel with the necessary protective equipment, IPN reports.

By a letter to Minister of Health, Labor and Social Protection Viorica Dumbrăveanu, Mihail Cotorobai expresses his concern about the reports that the health system employees who made revelations about the quality and quantity of protective equipment were subject to pressure on the part of employers.

The ombudsman says the analysis of the circumstances and content of the disclosures shows that the authors of these fall under the law on whistleblowers and should thus benefit from all the protection guarantees provided by this law, both on the part of employers and of the ombudsman.

Mihail Cotorobai recommended the Ministry of Health to swiftly and efficiently investigate the revelations about the quality of medical devices and to take measures to provide the medical staff with the necessary protective equipment.

He calls on the people who were intimidated, pressed or subject to revenge at the workplace owing to the internal or public revelations they made to contact the Ombudsman’s Office to seek protection through the email address: ombudsman@mbudsman.md or elena.cernauteanu@ombudsman.md, by filling out an online application on the official website of the Ombudsman’s Office: www.ombudsman.md or by phone: +37360002657.

Recently, a doctor who works for the Emergency Medical Service showed by a video broadcast on Facebook that the ambulance doctors do not benefit from appropriate protective equipment. Shortly afterward, the young man removed the posting. Contacted by journalists, he said he was “insistently” asked to do this. In another case, an otolaryngologist revealed that the Republic of Moldova is the only country where the intubation tubes are not for single use. When the person dies, these tubes are disinfected and used for the next patient. The Emergency Medicine Institute’s director Mhai Ciocanu reacted swiftly, denying the doctor’s assertions.