Romania: Doctors suspected of reusing implants from dead

CNN —Romanian prosecutors said on Saturday they have opened a criminal investigation into five doctors suspected of reusing hundreds of medical implants extracted from dead patients. They said the unnamed doctor oversaw a network of four other physicians who provided him with cardiac implants extracted from deceased patients without prior approval from them or their families. Prosecutors allege the doctor performed 238 surgeries over seven years from 2017, illegally using implants extracted from dead patients or of unknown provenance and putting his patients at risk of serious complications or death. Romania’s healthcare system, one of the least developed within the European Union, has been dogged by corruption, inefficiencies and politicized management. The state has built one hospital in the last three decades and spends the least on healthcare in the EU, with tens of thousands of doctors and nurses having emigrated.