14th September: Bogdan Marinescu

(Photo: Cotidianul) Apart from knowing that Bogdan Marinescu is the director of Giulesti Maternity Hospital, is being represented by prolific lawyer Marian Nazat and is still free 'while investigations continue' even if he is one of those majorly responsible for the tragedy of 16th August, what else do we know about this man? A great friend of Mayor of Bucharest, Sorin Oprescu. Okay, yes, but we need more.

Here we go.... Bogdan Marinescu and Sorin Oprescu have been friends since the communist era. Both are children of former nomenklatura. Bogdan Marinescu is the son of the former Minister of Health (1954-66), Voinea Marinescu, a surgeon who finished his studies in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and worked in several hospitals in the former Soviet Union, before returning home where he became a close associate of the former communist dictator, Gheorghiu-Dej. Sorin Oprescu is the son of the Securitate general, Mircea Oprescu, one of the torturers of political prisoners under the Dej regime. Mircea Oprescu became chief of security at only 24 years old and part of the Mobile Brigade led by NKVD colonel (Soviet Security) Alexandru Nicolschi who "hunted down" anti-Communist fighters.

THIS article not only tells the above story but also begins with a declaration that the incubators at Giulesti Maternity came from China and were a 'possible arrangement' between Oprescu and Marinescu. I'm not sure how true this is, but...

Marinescu was vice-minister of health in 1990, so close to politics all the way down the line and Oprescu was the personal physician to Ion Iliescu. Both Marinescu and Oprescu were influential members of PSD. It is also mentioned in one of the many comments that Oprescu was a boozing buddy of Nicu Ceausescu, a fellow school-mate. 

Here are some opinions about Marinescu from mothers who had the misfortune to give birth in his so-called 'care' - pretty mixed as one would expect, but the negative comments are many and very damning. One woman says she had to be induced to 'accomodate' Marinescu - in other words, he wouldn't come to assist at night or at the weekend, so her delivery had to be during the day and she was induced to give birth two days before her due date so that he would be present...isn't that unbelievable? Another woman who started to dilate at 1h in the morning was given diazepam to knock her out so that she would not give birth until the morning - the woman was in agony for 7h and it's a miracle her little girl was born normal. Of course, she was unable to feed her own baby due to the diazepam. Another says that Marinescu has the nickname 'Marinescu Mengele' because he experiments on women. One more says that he's not worth tuppence, is incapable and irresponsible.   

This comment is informative, educational and...shocking: "All physicians with seniority also have their private clinics. If you have a medical problem and the physician knows you can afford it, he pretends he's busy and schedules you at his private clinic. After the consultation and payment, he treats you at the state hospital so that the insurance will pay for the procedure. In principal, the medical care is paid for by the state but the physician is the one who pockets the money. This is the law. He charges you at the clinic and he treats you at the hospital. Moreover he sells you ovarian stimulant drugs from a 'friendly' pharmacy. So, the fertilisation and embryonic transfers are done at the hospital not costing him a penny but he pockets the money himself, then charges the insurance company. It is a wretched mafia which, through greed, makes it difficult for people to bring children into the world." In other words, in vitro fertilization is big business and Giulesti is well known for it. Being such a big shot, Marinescu can afford to tell patients where to come and women think that going to his clinic gives them a better success rate.  According to Titi, it is pretty well established that Marinescu and others of his senior staff, (who have their own clinics) charge the money privately, after examination, in their own environment, but the procedure is done at the hospital  where the up-to-date equipment is located.

The list of known disasters at Giulesti Maternity runs as follows: 1) 2007: Natalia Ionescu and the malpractice controversy involving Neagu the anaesthetist who is today acting as Marinescu's replacement as director of Giulesti; 2) babies burned when bathed in floor detergent; 3) 2010: recent fire. Titi, one of the commentors, asks: "where did you find the same management over 27 years?....these sinister characters could risk life imprisonment." Viky comments on 19th August 2010, "I was a patient of these famous Giulesti doctors: Marinescu, Nicolescu and company. I was left with trauma after all the time spent to become pregnant. They are unprofessional, they are bored by the job they have to do, sour, with bitter souls and this is the impression that I had of these bigshots, as some call them." In the end, Viky was treated in Sibiu and escaped Giulesti.

This is a comment from Mircea Cartarescu: "Both my children were born at the Giulesti Maternity with 16 years difference. My son spent a week in an incubator on ITU. I can tell you therefore, with hand on heart, that the tragedy that happened was not an accident. It was bound to happen one day. The Giulesti Maternity was a place of human misery and this has not changed in 23 years since I was there the first time. In fact, it has got even worse. I cannot forget the image of those miserable wards, the lack of hot water and tranquilisers, the image of new mothers going down the stairs the day after they had given birth to see their husbands, of the medical assistants with pockets full of crumpled banknotes, of the doctors screaming at the women on the delivery tables so loud you could hear them in the hallway - “Why are you yelling? You liked it when you did it so you should like it now!” I cannot forget the babies from the incubators, their eyes covered with sticky plaster because of the UV which was later ripped off with brutality. For my wife, the experience of giving birth at Giulesti was the bitterest and the most shocking of her life. The babies who were left to burn alive in that house of horror is an extention in time of the horror of Ceausescu’s childrens’ homes who brought us approbrium of the civilised world. Something like this doesn't even happen in black Africa - in fact it doesn't happen anywhere else in the world. Where is this evil coming from? Not from two badly insulated wires, but from the short circuit in our own barbarian brains, from "the Romanian way" of contempt for our fellow humans which has come to include even our future - the children."

This is the world of Giulesti Maternity Hospital, the world that was governed for the last 27 years by Professor Bogdan Marinescu and the endless witness statements and comments speak volumes. His politics, contacts and 'sins of the fathers' don't even matter. Just knowing what went on for all these years within the walls of Giulesti Maternity, the nameless victims, the untold reams of what would be considered anywhere else as blatant malpractice, should be enough to condemn this man for the rest of his life and the key slung into a bottomless pit. The facts speak for themselves. I don't think I need to write any more.

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