BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Romania’s minister for family affairs, Gabriela Firea, resigned her post on Friday amid a scandal over alleged abuses at care homes for the elderly and disabled.
Firea, 51, is the second minister in the one-month old coalition government of Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu to resign this week after Labour Minister Marius Budai.
On July 4, prosecutors said they had opened a criminal investigation against 26 suspects on accusations of human trafficking, fraud, forgery and forming organized crime groups to exploit the elderly under their care.
Following complaints from non-governmental organisations and neighbours, prosecutors raided three nursing homes located in the town of Voluntari on the outskirts of the capital Bucharest where they found 98 dirty, malnourished and bruised victims.
The elderly were subject to “inhuman or degrading treatment,” prosecutors said, forced to work, physically abused, deprived of sufficient food and medical treatment, denied adequate care and hygiene by the suspects, who misappropriated funds worth 5.2 million lei ($1.18 million).
Firea announced her resignation on Facebook after meeting with Ciolacu.
A prominent member of the ruling Social Democrat Party and former mayor of Bucharest, she is married to the mayor of Voluntari. The homes were ran by a person – now one of the suspects – who had worked at Firea’s parliamentary office.
Firea reiterated on Friday she did not know about the abuses and said she was being dragged in a scandal to prevent her from running for mayor of Bucharest in 2024. Romania holds presidential, general, local and European elections next year.
The government and state agencies denied having knowledge of the abuses, which President Klaus Iohannis earlier this week called a “national disgrace.” Subsequent government controls at care homes across the country revealed further mistreatment.
Investigative articles published by local news websites Centrul de Investigatii Media and Buletin de Bucuresti, which first wrote about the abuses in February, have shown the government and state agencies had long been notified by the mistreatment by NGOs.
A protest took place outside the government offices on Thursday against failed oversight and systemic graft that has undermined public administration and basic services.
($1 = 4.4025 lei)
(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by Angus MacSwan)