​A toll-free hotline launched in September 2020 to report abuse at centers for children and adults with disabilities has been discontinued, says Madelina Turza, State Counselor in the Prime Minister’s Office and former president of the National Authority for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Children and Adoption (ANDPDCA). According to her, in less than a year, several thousand appeals were received and checked on this line, administrative measures were taken or criminal cases were initiated. Less than a month after his departure, the hotline was stopped: “And there was silence.”

Mădălina Turza sent this information on Facebook in the context of investigations by Buletin de Bucureşti and Centrul de Investigații Media, which revealed incredible abuses in three care centers in Voluntara and Afumaca, where elderly and disabled people were kept in terrible conditions, starving and without medical care of help, with wounds to the bones and full of feces.

• “I don’t understand, or don’t want to understand, why any lever of transparency and control is destroyed as quickly as a shocking news story that creates a buzz for a day or two,” Turza wrote.

She says that when the ANDPDCA head’s term ends in 2021, she has left an operational and under-development real-time abuse reporting mechanism at the centers – a toll-free phone line available 24/7 for beneficiaries, with case files, indicators, operator rotations and psychologists, in a large public-private partnership.

According to the former head of the ANPK of Ukraine, in less than a year, several thousand reports were received and checked, administrative measures were taken, or criminal cases were initiated.

• “The command corps of ANDPCA was almost continuously in the field.
• Less than a month after my departure, it was disbanded.
• Despite huge efforts in commissioning and partnership with UNICEF and civil society.
• And there was silence. And as you know, silence breeds monsters.
• I am not saying that this is a universal solution to the problem of social services for the socially vulnerable population. And I’m not even saying that I don’t understand the limitations of the system or the slippage of some sensitive social topics, but it was a lever of prevention and control,” added Madalina Turza.

How Telverde worked for people in social centers

The National Authority for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Children and Adoption (ANDPDCA), the Institutionalized Youth Council (CTI), the Legal Resources Center (CRJ) and the UNICEF Office in Romania announced in September 2020 a new version of the emergency telephone line Telverde 0800 500 550 intended for children and adults in social centers.

The institution noted that the pilot stage of this mechanism of support and connection to the immediate needs of the beneficiaries made it possible to obtain operational and specific information about the situation of children and adults in residential centers.

According to the quoted source, most of the calls then came from centers in Sibiu, Bihor, Timis, Prahova, Mureş and Ilfov.

“The calls to telverde reflect the urgent need to improve the quality of psychological support services, as well as to diversify the offered services. Interaction with beneficiaries raises the question of the quality of human resources and specialized training adapted to their needs.

In addition, the information collected from the beneficiaries, which raises problems related to the observance of the beneficiaries’ rights and living conditions, substantiates the measures that the ANDPDCA takes at the system level, respectively: control actions, monitoring and instructional visits, instructions and recommendations to the DGASPC and , in certain situations, referral to investigative bodies,” the institution reported at the time.

Asylums of horrors

A large-scale operation by the Romanian police and DIICOT took place on Tuesday morning when investigators went to three nursing homes for the elderly in Ilfov County. About 100 people were held in incredible conditions, starving and without medical care, by two criminal gangs, the IGPR said.

Two state institutions responsible for social assistance and child protection are also under investigation. Residents of Voluntari said that naked old women stood by the fence of the centers and begged passers-by for money or food.

Elderly people were kept as in a camp, in private dormitories in Voluntary, with wounds to the bone and full of feces: “The conditions of Auschwitz. They begged by the fence naked.”

Terrible conditions in nursing homes were revealed as early as February 2023 by a journalistic investigation by Buletin de București and Centrul de Investigații Media.

Doctors who took the elderly from horror shelters were shocked: “Foreign objects were found in the stomach. Buttons and beads. Apparently, they ate their clothes out of hunger.”

Read also:

• The authorities have been informed about the situation in the horror shelters since September: “No one sees any problem”

• “Ah you scumbag.” Unbelievable details about the brutal treatment of people from horror shelters in Ilfov – interception / Four people pre-arrested, 11 under house arrest
• Pandele did not see the horrors of the volunteer hostels on television. Correspondence of Councilor Gabriela Firea with Metropola TV
• Ministry of the Family about counselor Gabriela Firea, involved in the case of centers where elderly people were subjected to inhumane treatment: she is mentioned only as a witness