Large burns, state-of-the-art treatment in a few EU countries: others lag behind
While in Austria, Italy and Spain the major burns networks guarantee specialised care and low mortality rates, in many European countries patients continue to be transferred abroad for lack of adequate facilities and trained personnel
Ten years after the Colectiv club fire in Bucharest, which killed 65 people on 30 October 2015 and left an indelible mark on the country's collective memory, Romania still does not have a fully operational centre for the treatment of the severely burned. It is a delay that weighs not only in symbolic but also in practical terms: every year, around 10 thousand people present themselves in the country's emergency rooms with burns of varying severity, 4 thousand are hospitalised, and around 1,500 require complex and prolonged treatment.
The trauma of Colectiv and the trail of errors
On the night of 30 October 2015, 26 people died inside the Colectiv club, one during transport to hospital and 38 more in the following days and weeks. The authorities assured at the time that they had 'everything they needed' to treat the injured, but the reality of the hospital wards quickly belied the official statements. There was a lack of intensive care beds, equipment, expertise, and above all, adequate hygienic conditions.
Of the 33 initial survivors who died in the following months, 23 were found to have multi-resistant nosocomial infections (infections acquired during hospital stay, caused by bacteria resistant to the most common antibiotics). It is a detail that, more than any other, sums up the distance between political rhetoric and the country's health reality.
Ten years later, little seems to have changed. In the summer of 2025, a young woman with burns over 70% of her body, hospitalised for 53 days in the only centre formally authorised to treat large burns - that of the Floreasca hospital in Bucharest - was transferred to Belgium. There, doctors at the Charleroi centre discovered that the patient was infected with Candida auris, a highly resistant hospital fungus, described by Belgian doctors as 'the plague'. The incident prompted the new Minister of Health, Alexandru Rogobete, to close the centre and order its restructuring, downgrading it to a unit for medium-severe burns.
Ten years of promises and construction sites
The construction of real large burn centres in Romania was announced back in 2014, a year before Colectiv. Four specialised hospitals were planned: two in Bucharest, one in Timișoara and one in Târgu Mureș. For almost seven years, nothing moved. It was only in 2022, thanks to a World Bank loan, that work started again. Today, three centres are under construction - in Timișoara, Târgu Mureș and Bucharest (the latter dedicated to children).
