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Pacemaker (symbol image): taken from the dead and used in the living?
Photo: Science Photo Library / Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF
The Romanian authorities are investigating five doctors who are said to have obtained heart implants from questionable sources and used them on the basis of false diagnoses.
According to the public prosecutor's office, a suspect was taken into custody on Saturday evening.
The cardiologist at a hospital in Iasi used a total of 238 medical implants "of unknown origin" between 2017 and 2022, the investigators said.
He is also accused of corruption.
According to prosecutors, the man was the head of a gang of suspected criminal doctors.
The four other suspects are said to have provided him with implants that had been removed from the dead without the consent of the relatives.
These are pacemakers and defibrillators.
By illegally reusing it, he put the lives of the recipients at risk.
Interventions probably not necessary
A large part of the interventions were based on "fictitious diagnoses" and were not necessary.
In some cases, the victims were given medication to produce symptoms.
The public health system in Romania has been rocked by numerous scandals and corruption scandals in recent years.
Relative to its economic power, the state spends less on health than almost any other member state in an EU comparison.
Thousands of doctors and nurses have left Romania in recent years.
jpz/AFP/Reuters