“Booster” Gheorghiță, an expert in conferences
The desperation with which several “luminaries” of medicine refuse to get off their high-backed chair, keeping on stealing from the system, is one of the reasons why we can’t, yet, hope for high quality medical assistance. The news about how the leaders of the pandemic apocalypse are sponsored by companies in Big Pharma are not just mere news. The data is public, and the faint reaction of the “culprits” only confirms.
The sponsorship lists, which doctors receive for participating in certain events, most of them external, contain thousands of names and hundreds of millions of RONs. Some of them make us question the honesty of those who today are trying to make themselves “influencers” of the fight against the pandemic.
The image of the vaccination fiasco is, without discussion, colonel Gheorghiță Valeriu. An illustrious mediocre of medicine who has benefitted, for 5 years, from 62 sponsorship contracts worth 135.172 RON.
Half of these sponsorships happened in 2019. The year the pandemic started was not bad either for the friend of some companies that produce or sell medication. ABBVIE, NEOLA Pharm, Merck, Sharp&Dohme or the more famous Pfizer and Johnson&Johnson have been sponsoring the presence of disciple Streinu-Cercel in various activities every year. Companies rushed to spill their wellbeing on the future general of the Army, and the natural question is: what is the expertise of the “vaccination fiasco”?
It is true, a thin cheek needs the creams and ointments of the American company Johnson and Johnson, but still, what is the explanation?
Professionally he has no achievements. You barely find 3-4 patients that can say “I was treated by Valerică, good boy”. He did not have time, anyway. The days he went to conferences, those when he is “chief” at the School of Midwifery and Nursing are added to those when he elaborated his over 140 scientific essays, most of them by collaborating with his former colleagues at the “Matei Balș” Institute.
Col. Physician dr. Gheorghiță Valeriu is in the situation punished by the art. 29/ Law 176/ 2010 regarding the non-submission of the statement of financial position and of interests in the terms provided by the present law or the Central Military Emergency Hospital is refusing to make them public. In 2020 Valerică was appointed chief of the Medical Center for Epidemiologic Intervention , annex to the CMEH and coordinator of the national vaccination campaign. Both positions fall under the incidence of the legislation that provides obligations of integrity and transparence for those who exercise public functions and dignities. Not in Gheorghiță’s case. He has not even declared all his sponsorships, when is he supposed to fill in the statement of financial position.
How does an illustrious mediocre end up benefitting and then be appointed “coordinator of the vaccination campaign”? Until the beginning of the pandemic Valerică was nothing but a notorious opportunist preoccupied only by filling his resume with all sorts of extra medical activities, but less caring to patients. Until gl.mr. Ioniță Florentina promoted him to chief of an artificial structure, with no activity or impact, Gheorghiță was just Streinu-Cercel’s pupil. How does a physician with no activity end up more appreciated than his colleagues in the Infectious Diseases section of the Central Military Emergency Hospital? Some of them are experts well-known in the field.
A job is… a golden earring (eng. earring= ro. cercel)
The beginning of the pandemic reminds us that Adrian Streinu-Cercel was permanently present in television studios. Or about the controversial messages he would give. From his demand that acquisitions made during the pandemic are exonerated by law before they were controlled, to the contradictions in his own statements, his eminence from “Balș” caused more confusion than security. After a while he stopped. He found the perspective of a mandate in Romania’s Parliament more reassuring. He thought that if he does not stand by his statements and tomorrow denies what he says today, he meets the minimum criteria to be on the lists of the social-democrats. On a spot that became eligible. The “Matei Balș” Institute lost a good physician, at least that is what his supporters in the mass media say, but the Parliament gained a politician full of “qualities”. And sponsors.
In the last five years Adrian Streinu Cercel, together with his daughter, Anca Streinu Cercel, earned sponsorships worth 425.000 lei (new or RON, so there is no confusion). ABBVIE, NEOLA Pharm or GILEAD SCIENCES and very often Pfizer are amongst the sponsors of the Streinu Cercel family. Out of the 217 sponsorship contracts very few are registered by the two beneficiaries. Still, Streinu Cercel declared that in 2020 he earned 167.408 lei from UMF “Carol Davila”, another 161.270 lei from the Matei Balș Institute, which he led, another 670.860 from the contracts he closed as natural person (PFI) and 100.844 lei from medical activities and copywrites. A total of 1.100.382 lei earned by a doctor in Romania in 2020. Or 225.000 euro, this meaning almost 19.000 a month.
A generation colleague with “Booster” Gheorghiță at the Matei Balș Institute, Anca Streinu Cercel turned out to be fond of international conferences and university studies herself. The two doctoral theses are interesting, both under the guidance of the chief at Matei Balș, Adrian Streinu Cercel. In 2005-2010, Anca Cercel studies for her PhD, immediately after graduating from Medical School, with the title “Therapeutic Management of acute HBV viral hepatitis”. In the period 2009-2013 Gheorghiță also has his doctoral thesis with the title “… the prediction of the response to antiviral treatment […] at patients with HVB chronical hepatitis”. The two theses are worth reading at least to study what can be created by professor Cercel’s fondness of HVB hepatitis.
The Matei Balș Insitute has not managed to provide a satisfying response to the pandemic, it provided, however, a fire in which the number of deceased patients changed like the wind blew through Arafat’s hair. Sponsorships from those in the medicine industry poured over the hospital and its doctors… countless. More modest by nature, dr. Adrian Marinescu closed only 28 sponsorship contracts worth 50.830 RON. It was hard for him to make it among Cercel’s protegees and family.
Beatrice Mahler, the voice of the pandemic on behalf of the “Marius Nasta” Institute committed several frauds to hide the money received from medication companies. Given how busy Beatrice is, why does it matter that she took crumbs from almost transparent sponsorships? Forcefully put at the lead of the “Nasta” Institute by the SDP minister Bodog, she is occupying the position illegally and only delays in justice keep her in the position of “authorized voice of the pandemic”. She does not declare her incomes very clearly, but sponsorship companies help her, sometimes, participate in certain activities. Beatrice too made 25 contracts worth 25.000 RON, but this is just the tip of the iceberg, friends know why!
Alexandru Rafila, future former minister or prime-minister proposal from the SDP, or Carmen Dorobăț, former director of the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Iași did not get away from sponsorships either. Astra Zeneca seems to be another huge admirer of Romanian physicians, therefore “specialist” Rafila could not hide from their generous checks. In only two years, 2019 and 2020, the Association Romanian Society for Microbiology had incomes of 192.434 RON from the producer of vaccines that are/ are not administrated. The president of the “Association” is one of the rotating prime-ministers Cîțu-Ciolacu, the WHO representative, SDP deputy Alexandru Rafila. In the last five years Rafila and the Association managed to get sponsorships of over 372.299 RON. As far as Carmen Dorobăț is concerned, it worth reminding you that she is not the chief of the hospital anymore because of a 3 year suspended sentence for… bribery.
“What have you done in the last 5 years?” “I gathered sponsorships!”
- Dr. Adrian Streinu-Cercel and Anca Streinu-Cercel – 217 contracts worth 425.000 RON
- Dr. Alexandru Rafila (Association Romanian Society for Microbiology) – 14 contracts worth 371.299 RON
- Col. Gheorghiță Valeiru – 62 contracts worth 135.172 RON
- Dr. Adrian Marinescu – 28 contracts worth 50.830 RON
- Dr. Beatrice Mahler – 25 contracts worth 25.000 RON
(Source: https://www.anm.ro/medicamente-de-uz-uman/publicitate/sponsorizari-medicamente-de-uz-uman/)
The extent to which these sponsorships raise bribery or influence peddling suspicions is others’ obligation to figure out, we have, however, the right to bring them into attention. We need to mention that these are only those that some sponsors registered, but all the people mentioned are registered as ANP and work for cabinets or private hospitals. It is a controversy society has ignored before. How fair is it, for a doctor, employee of a public hospital, to also work for a private one? Or how fair is it when patients are recruited from the public hospital?
The patient doesn’t matter, the system will save us
On the site of the National Agency for Medication and Medical Devices of Romania are registered only the sponsorships that all these doctors receive from pharmaceutical companies or medication producers. Many, if not most of them, are absolutely personal benefits, have nothing to do with public institutions that these eminences work for. Hospitals, because all of them are employees of public healthcare units, collapse or turn into ad-hoc crematories, but doctors, who frighten us on a daily basis, prosper further.
Generously sponsored hospital managers and doctors went on strike only for salaries or personal benefits. They did not revolt against nosocomial infections that kill more people than bullets in Afghanistan and did not protest against the permanent degradation of the infrastructure. They opened firms and private businesses to which they redirected their patients “hunted” in public hospitals. They got rich and searched for means of protection to exonerate them from abuse, malpractice or other felonies.
Most doctors and personnel in the Romanian health system are dedicated to the patient, many of them often receiving the gratitude of those they save. The paradox is that they are anonymous. Those who get to understand the system and exploit it financially are those who present themselves as being “authorized voices”.
Vaccination and the fight against the pandemic are a huge failure of the political class, but, equally of the voices of the pandemic. Gheorghiță, Streinu-Cercel, Mahler, Rafila or Dorobăț predict the apocalypse almost daily. But that’s all. None of them owns up to anything. Not even criminal records or complaints scare them. They are eternal. If a problem emerges Arafat will intervene and covers it up. We have the pandemic leaders, it’s normal to have an undertaker too.
(an article by Pan Themis)