As Romania struggles with its deadliest wave of the pandemic, Poland has taken in patients from the country and sent a medical mission to help its struggling healthcare system.
On Friday, three Romanian patients “in serious condition” landed at Łódź airport, where they are now being treated at a hospital in the Polish city.
Earlier in the week, the health minister, Adam Niedzielski, had held talks with his Romanian counterpart, who asked Poland for help. Hungary has also taken in patients from Romania.
Due to the extremely difficult situation in Romania caused by COVID-19, after the consultations with the President of Romania @KlausIohannis and the Prime Minister @florincitu we decided to send a medical mission to Romania. Let's get through this together!
— Mateusz Morawiecki (@MorawieckiM) October 24, 2021
Yesterday evening, Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, announced that Poland would send a medical mission to Romania due to “the extremely difficult situation” in the country. “We’ll get through this together,” he tweeted.
Romania currently has the EU’s highest Covid death rate, with a rolling daily average of 21.64 deaths per million people over the last week. That is more than 10 times the EU average of 2.14. In Poland, the figure is 1.27.
All of Romania’s 2,000 intensive care beds are full and patients have been left waiting outside, reports the BBC. The country has the EU’s second lowest vaccination rate, with only 31% of the population fully vaccinated against COVID-19 compared to 65% across the bloc as a whole.
Poland itself has been experiencing a surge in infections, with daily numbers of new cases recently double those a week earlier. Niedzielski last week admitted that the rise “is exceeding all forecasts” and called the situation “terrifying”. Some Polish hospitals are reporting growing difficulties.
Discussing the reception of patients from Romania, Niedzielski told Radio Zet that it was important to show “solidarity”. But he warned that the situation in Romania “shows what dangers we can face” in Poland.
Niedzielski also said that he would today be speaking to the health minister of Lithuania, where the situation is “definitely deteriorating”, reports TVN24.
Main image credit: Hospital CLÍNIC/Flickr (under CC BY-ND 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
