Declic is collecting signatures for the dismissal of the Minister of Health, following the HotNews investigation regarding sponsorships from the pharmaceutical industry for events organized by the Romanian Society of Microbiology, led by Alexandru Rafila. Declic launched an online petition entitled “Ciolacu, Rafila must go”, addressed to the prime minister.
Alexander RafilaPhoto: Inquam Photos / Sabin Cirstoveanu
“We, the signatories of this petition, demand the urgent dismissal of the Minister of Health. It is scandalous and absolutely unacceptable that Alexandru Rafila still holds the position of minister, given his recently discovered conflict of interest. While his activity as a minister was subjugated to the interest of a part of the pharmaceutical industry, Romania reached the 1st place in the EU in the death of patients from preventable and treatable causes”, say the initiators of the online petition “Ciolacu, Rafila must go”.
Declic representatives also state in the petition that “Minister Rafila has repeatedly demonstrated a total disregard for the needs of patients. Already for a year, he has been postponing without any plausible excuse the rules for the National Plan to fight cancer, expected by thousands of patients”.
“With revolting cynicism, he sabotaged the opening of the hospital for children with cancer, built with private donations, by Dăruiește Viață. Moreover, he lost 740 million euros from the PNRR, intended for the construction of new hospitals, and tried to weaken the legislation for the care of the severely burned,” the petition also states.
“More recently, Hotnews investigations have exposed how Rafila receives funds from pharmaceutical companies through the NGO he heads while he is also the Minister of Health. [1] [2] These companies benefit, in exchange for sponsorships of tens and hundreds of thousands of euros, from the necessary approvals for the marketing of medicines and medical devices, through a public institution directly subordinated to the minister.”
The initiators of the petition believe that “this conflict of interest is deeply incompatible with the position of Minister of Health. A minister with such close ties to the pharmaceutical industry poses a major risk to the integrity of decisions affecting public health and must be removed from office.”
“It is essential that the Prime Minister steps in now and sacks Rafila. We need a Minister to guarantee impartial and efficient administration of the major investments that should be made in Health in the immediate future. Rafila’s dismissal is not only necessary, it is mandatory for public health,” they add.
“We are at a crossroads: we either continue with an indolent, ineffective and integrity-challenged Health chief, or we choose to step in and demand, insistently, that he be replaced. Immediate action and an unprecedented public mobilization is needed to bring about this change,” the petition’s initiators conclude.
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Tags: Petition dismissal Rafila launched Declic HotNews investigation sponsorships pharmaceutical industry
