Marius Budăi, the Romanian minister of labour and social protection, stepped down on Thursday in the first high-level resignation following the nursing home scandal near Bucharest that shocked the country, according to Euractiv.
Prosecutors discovered appalling conditions in three care centres near Bucharest, where nearly 100 elderly residents faced starvation, torture, and exploitation at the hands of a criminal network involving state officials and private individuals.
“It is the natural reaction in any consolidated democracy of Europe,” reacted Socialist Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu.
Budăi said last week, immediately after the scandal broke out, that he had no powers to close nursing homes and no reason to resign. The main figure in this public scandal, the Minister of Family Gabriela Firea, stated the same.
On Tuesday, Budăi said his resignation “does not matter”, while President Klaus Iohannis said ahead of the NATO summit in Vilnius that he does not know “who is politically guilty, but this will be seen”.
Amid the situation in Ilfov County’s nursing homes, the government has set up groups to check each county and verify how staff carry out their work.
As a result of these checks, many such homes for the elderly have been closed across the country this week.
Elderly people in three shelters in Ilfov, north of Bucharest, were found in inhumane conditions: beaten, without medicine and forced to work without food.
“People were exploited through coercion and violence, through unpaid work, they were left hungry and subjected to degrading and inhuman treatment,” police Chief Commissioner Georgian Drăgan told Romanian media this week.
Euractiv tried to contact Firea to comment on the situation, but she did not respond.