Bucharest District 1 Mayor, Clotilde Armand, has allegedly cut the funding of four of the most important hospitals in Bucharest, all located in District 1. This is a false narrative, promoted on a number of media channels and endorsed by politicians of the largest opposition party, PSD.
NEWS: “Bucharest District 1 Mayor, Clotilde Armand, has made an unprecedented call: she will completely slash the funding of 4 hospitals […] Mihai Gâdea, a popular TV host, immediately commented on the mayor’s decision, saying “what has become of our country?”, which is indicative of deep-going discontent. No one knows why the mayor made this decision. We would like to note that even some of her fellow party members were shocked at the news. Clotilde Armand’s decision to discontinue payments to these hospitals is completely ill-timed. Right now, the Romanian healthcare system needs all the “help” it can get” […]” (Evenimentul Zilei)
“A very serious development in Bucharest, where 4 key hospitals – the Floreasca Emergency Hospital, the Major Burns Hospital, the “Grigore Alexandrescu” Emergency Children’s Hospital and the Ophthalmology Emergency Hospital – risk seeing their funding run dry. The former Bucharest General Mayor, Gabriela Firea, says the “New Bucharest” mayors don’t care about patients, but merely about their political standing. The said hospitals risk having their sources of funding taken away “at the whim of the new district mayor”, Clotilde Armand, Firea went on to say. “Today, Mrs. Armand is asking local councilmen to cease investments in these hospitals! She won’t even pay the utility bills, claiming the budget is under “pressure”! The managers of the four hospitals in question today found out their units will no longer receive payments and investments, should this decision be voted by the PNL and USR-PLUS majority in the District 1 local council”, Gabriela Firea also wrote (Sputnik.md)
NARRATIVES: The narrative is the same, “Clotilde Armand is cutting the funding of four big hospitals”, which takes on slightly different undertones used by the various newsdesks, depending on the points of view expressed and the characters involved. A number of secondary narratives are also derived. Here are some examples:
An outrageous decision. Clotilde Armand has made up her mind: Four hospitals will be left hung out to dry (Evenimentul Zilei). The publication mentions the show “Sinteza zilei” (Today’s News Roundup) as its source, insisting all funding channels have been shut down. Evenimentul zilei also writes that the timing is very delicate, considering that several fires have broken out in hospitals in Romania recently.
Hospital scandal in District 1. Clotilde Armand cuts the funding of four big hospitals, including the Grigore Alexandrescu Children’s Hospital (Antena 3). The focus this time is on emotional polarization: the photo attached to the story depicts a new-born in a hospital, without providing any details regarding the name of the hospital. The article refers to a number of statements presented during the TV show “Sinteza Zilei”, presented by Mihai Gâdea. The manager of the Grigore Alexandru Hospital gives details regarding the hospital costs currently supported by the District 1 City Hall, while Monica Pop, the former manager of the Clinical Ophthalmology Emergency Hospital, who is mistakenly presented as its current manager and who in recent months has taken a virulent public stance against anti-COVID vaccination, is also quoted in the story. Monica Pop is featured extensively on shows on Antena 3 and on Sinteza Zilei.
Clotilde Armand has cut the funding of four hospitals in the capital city. Monca Pop: “I was expecting this, it’s a monumental blunder” (RTV). The TV station highlights Monica Pop’s public statement and falsely presents Monica Pop as the manager of the Clinical Ophthalmology Emergency Hospital, the same as Antena 3.
Gabriela Firea’s reaction after Clotilde Armand has withdrawn funding for four of Bucharest’s hospitals: “A murderous project” (Mediafax). The news agency strictly reports Gabriela Firea’s accusations, without providing any context or presenting Armand’s point of view.
Clotilde Armand riding roughshod in District 1. The French woman decided to switch off the funding of 4 big hospitals in Bucharest. Could this be linked to Vlad Voiculescu’s real estate plans? (ActiveNews). Aside from the hospital narrative itself, another two narratives are brought to the fore. The first inadvertently refers to Clotilde Armand’s nationality, who in recent years has been tied to French intelligence, a widely spread hypothesis that hasn’t yet been substantiated. The second narrative refers to the alleged real estate interests of Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu. Again, no evidence is provided to confirm these interests, the only argument to support this claim being an article published on January 31 on inpolitics.ro, which in turn is citing a 2016 article offering speculations and providing no piece of evidence.
BACKGROUND: The Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Hospital, the “Grigore Alexandrescu” Emergency Children’s Hospital, the Floreasca Emergency Hospital and the Clinical Ophthalmology Emergency Hospital have been placed under the control of the Bucharest City Hall under a District 1 Local Council decision. The story was published on February 3 and was given wide media coverage. According to a Zelist search on this topic, February 4 marked a peak of some 500 reports related to Clotilde Armand and hospitals, 40% of which were carried by the media, followed by aggregate sources and Facebook. The number of reports dropped constantly over the next days, to under 370 on February 5, at around 125 on February 6 and to a little under 60 on February 7. The three most influential reports on February 6, Zelist writes, included the Observator 7 PM news segment on Antena 3 (with an estimated audience of 446,000 people), the 7 PM News on Radio România Actualități (289,000 estimated audience) and the RTV 7 PM news segment (279,000 audience rating). Zelist’s monitoring account traced all reports, including neutral ones, which simply presented the facts (i.e. the Radio România Actualități newscast).
Worth noting, at this point, is that most of the publications/stations that deliberately slanted the story have been criticized in the past for spreading fake news (for instance, reports on anticorruption efforts during Laura Codruța Kövesi’s term at the helm of the National Anticorruption Directorate, the Colectiv tragedy and ensuing protests, the Rezist movement, measures to combat the pandemic, etc.)
These publications also fail to report on the actual decision of the District 1 Local Council, which suggests their primary source was not the decision itself and that they might not even had consulted the decision in the first place before publishing the story.
One of first people to react to the story was the former Bucharest General Mayor, Gabriela Firea, who wrote in a Facebook post, on February 3, at 4:28 PM, that the hospitals in question “risk seeing their funding cut at the whim of the district’s new mayor”. Gabriela Firea’s statement was redistributed by a number of webpages, including realitatea.net and stiripesurse.ro, on February 3 and playtech.ro and sputnik.md, both on February 4. None of these publications included in their articles a point of view other than that of Gabriela Firea. Another source for this story, cited by a number of publications, was the show Sinteza Zilei, on Antena 3, which debated the topic on February 3, after the vote in the Local Council. The show was cited by online publications like evz.ro and capital.ro.
The scandal surrounding this topic follows an exchange of embittering comments between Clotilde Armand and members of PSD, even before Armand took office. Right before the local election, following revelations published on justnews.ro regarding her being illegally followed in 2017 by the District 1 local police, Clotilde Armand filed a complaint with the Directorate Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT). The election process was itself ridden with controversy and attempted fraud allegations. Disputes in this matter continued long after Armand was sworn into office and new conflicts emerged. The new mayor accused the former PSD administration of poor management regarding the district’s sanitation services, while PSD in opposition have criticized Armand’s ironfist policies. With one of the highest budgets in Bucharest, District 1 has been seeing escalating tensions both between the power and the opposition, as well as within the governing coalition itself. In fact, on February the 3rd an employee of the local police testified that he was threatened for exposing the corruption within the organization, but his testimony was largely ignored because of the hospital scandal.
PURPOSE: To discredit the mayor of District 1, Clotilde Armand, and, by extension, all the political parties whose councilmen voted in favor of this decision.
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE:
It was not Mayor Clotilde Armand who made this decision, but rather it was voted by the Local Council of the District 1 City Hall. Worth noting here is that voting in the District 1 local council is not “clockwork” and the mayor has no majority to rely on. Evidence of that can be found in the latest disagreements over various topics with PNL councilmen, who this time around voted in favor of the decision.
- The vote in the Local Council did not concern the withdrawal of funding for the hospitals, but removing them from the control of the District 1 City Hall. As Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu explains in a talk with Clotilde Armand, the four hospitals were already subordinated to the Health Ministry, and their buildings are part of the General Council’s assets. A third aspect is linked to the administration of the land and buildings which were still the property of the District 1 local council. The council renounced ownership over these properties, which is what happened also with other important hospitals in other districts of Bucharest. Mayor Armand told Veridica that “we never said we will cut the money, we have no intention to do so” and she added that the hospitals are still budgeted.
- The transfer of the hospital’s management was operated based on a number of orders and decrees. The Government Decree no. 144/2010, under art. 2 in Annex 2, provides a list of hospitals working under the authority of the Health Ministry “whose funding is covered by own revenues and contracts signed via the social security system”. The 4 hospitals are listed in the aforementioned Annex. Decree no. 227/29.10.2010 issued by the District 1 Local Council sanctions the transfer of the hospitals in question from the administration of the District 1 Local Council to the authority of the Bucharest City Hall’s General Council. Finally, a certified report of the Court of Auditors dated May 23, 2016 refers to “four clinical emergency hospitals which, despite being under the authority of the Health Ministry, are unwarrantedly retained within the District 1’s administration of public healthcare units”.
- At any rate, the funding in question doesn’t cover the total subsidies provided to the hospitals. The District 1 City Hall writes, in a notification, that in 2020, for instance, the “Grigore Alexandrescu” Emergency Children’s Hospital reported 108,716,212 lei in revenues, 295,000 lei of which represented subsidies from the local budget meant to cover health-related capital expenditures, “accounting for approximately 0.27% of the overall budget”.
GRAIN OF TRUTH:
The District 1 Local Council adopted a decision based on which 4 hospitals are removed from its authority.
The District 1 City Hall had been securing funding for the four hospitals for years (which did not cover the hospital’s overall costs, but merely maintenance spending and utility bills, which were a fraction of the total budget).
The manager of the Grigore Alexandrescu hospital did say that, in the absence of this funding, the hospital he runs lacks the necessary funds to cover the said expenses.
OFFICIAL REACTIONS: The District 1 PNL branch writes on its Facebook account that the Council’s decision “doesn’t change and cannot change the legal framework and the funds disbursed from the District 1 budget to the four hospitals”. PNL councilmen voted in favor of the decision, although they had been opposing some of Clotilde Armand’s decisions of late.
The Health Minister, Vlad Voiculescu, said that the hospitals will not lose their funding, the decision merely concerns a change in the rights of use (Radio România Actualități, February 6, the 8 AM Newscast).
Clotilde Armand has provided a number of documents to support her claims and has reported “Sinteza Zilei” to the Audiovisual National Council for spreading fake news.
