Bucharest, January 11, 2025
On the morning of January 11, 2025, between 5:30 and 7:00 a.m., representatives of the Centre for Legal Resources (CLR) and of the Monitoring Council (Law no. 8/2016) carried out unnanounced monitoring visits in four foster care centers, under the subordination of DGASPC Mures, located in the municipality of Targu Mures.
A total of 63 children with disabilities are institutionalized in the four centers visited (61 present in the centers and 2 hospitalized), although the capacity for which the operating license was initially issued was for 51 beneficiaries.
At the time of the visit, all four centers were operating outside the law, with their operating licenses expiring on December 2 and December 4, 2024.
Several illegalities were identified during the visit, the main ones being the following:
- Children aged between 3-7 years are not in the care of professional maternal assistants, as required by law, but are placed in social care homes. Thus, DGASPC Mures has breached its obligation to provide care for children in a family environment.
- In one of the social care homes, eight children were locked in bedrooms with bol bolts on the outside so that they could not get out of the rooms. The staff on duty told us that this was due to staff shortages.
- In two of the social care homes, a check of the medicines in the emergency machines revealed expired medicines. The staff on duty stated that they had recently administered these treatments.
- In all four social care homes, the living and care conditions are inadequate, do not meet the legal standards: 9 children were observed in one bedroom, there were rooms without doors, unsanitary spaces, mattresses covered in plastic, beds of inadequate size – all of which are likely to endanger the life and integrity of children.
- In one of the social care homes, we found an outbreak of chickenpox, five children were diagnosed, not all of them were isolated from other institutionalized children.
- There are children with disabilities who don’t benefit from physiotherapy services even though doctors say the lack of recovery can be life-threatening.
CLR has participated in several monitoring visits to these foster care homes since March 2024, which have been unannounced or announced.
In all visits, CLR observed the same situation – serious problems of overcrowding, lack of hygiene, lack of proper nutrition, lack of access to medical services, lack of activities and recovery of children, forced institutionalization – most families were not counseled before taking children from the family, did not receive adequate services in the community and after institutionalization – they were restricted in visiting their children.
All CLR visits in one of the foster care homes – Trebely Center – have shown that these children are uncared for, sometimes left alone and unsupervised, deprived of specific recovery and rehabilitation activities – which were the main basis for their institutionalization in that center, deprived of adequate medical care, deprived of proper and nutritionally assessed nutrition. In the children’s records of presentation to the emergency room of the County Hospital / Emergency Hospital Tg. Mureș there are mentions of children being admitted without a guardian or presenting only in an emergency and not for specialist consultation. For several children, the emergency physicians noted malnutrition and severe dehydration on admission.
In spite of a generous staffing scheme, CLR found irregularities during monitoring visits, mostly related to staff not participating in activities according to their job description (not attending the program) and providing care services that were inadequate to the specific needs of the children accommodated in the center. In the majority of the unannounced visits it could be observed that there was a lack of specialized staff and even a lack of a concrete program that was posted or known. The only persons routinely observed were two caretakers responsible for feeding, hygiene, supervision of the children and keeping the center clean. In some cases, when the caregivers took breaks, the children were left completely unattended. We consider that the lack of supervision of the children implies a negligent attitude and means a high risk for the health and bodily integrity of the children. We emphasize the fact that many of the children have been diagnosed with epilepsy and most of them are unable to move around on their own.
Physical therapy services are essential for children with disabilities staying at the Trebely Center. According to the doctors, physiotherapy and speech and swallowing rehabilitation services are vital for these children. Without these exercises, the internal organs are damaged by “pressure and squeeze” which could lead to a premature death. This is also the main reason why we point out that at present the lack of involvement of specialists and the state of poor nutrition and hygiene are likely to jeopardize the development of children and even their life and integrity. However, the representatives of the center could not satisfactorily prove that these services are really being provided properly and consistently to the children accommodated in the center.
Minimum standards of accommodation, such as weekly linen changes and regular sanitization of clothes, are not respected. Children are rarely washed, the staff using with dirty sponges, diapers are not changed regularly, and clothes, bed linen and towels are worn and dirty. The state of children’s health is worrying and the quality of care is poor. Oral health is also extremely poor, indicating a lack of proper dental care
However, the Annual Action Plan of Mures County Council for 2024 allocates a total budget of approximately 4.7 million RON (~1 million euro) for the four residential centers for children with neuropsychiatric disabilities, each foster care home receiving between 1 and 1.3 million RON. These budgets are excessive not only in relation to the conditions offered to the beneficiaries, as there is no involvement of the Mures County Council management in verifying how these sums were spent, but also in relation to the cost standards established by law for social services and the budgets of similar centers in other counties. In the field, it was not possible to identify investments at the level of the sums from which DGASPC Mures has benefited, namely the sum of approximately 1 million euro, the infrastructure and the precarious living conditions of the children being assimilated to the 90s.
As a result of the irregularities found, CLR has notified since 2024, the prosecutors from the DIICOT Territorial Structure Târgu Mureș, and will take further steps to refer the case to the Prosecutor General’s Office for the documentation and investigation of the new facts found following the monitoring visit this morning.
Taking into account the best interest of the child and the fact that the life of children in these centers is already put in imminent danger, Centre for Legal Resources requests the immediate intervention of all public institutions responsible for this segment of work, namely, the Prosecutor General’s Office, DIICOT, Mures County Police Inspectorate, Mures County Council, ANPDCA, Ministry of Labor, Mures Public Health Department, National Agency for Social Inspection and Payments, and the Ministry of Health.
The Monitoring Council’s visit report is available here (RO version).