BALTI, Moldova (TrustLaw) - Slava's mother may have still been alive today if he had bribed the doctors in time.
Many doctors in Moldova, a former Soviet republic and now Europe's poorest country, expect to be bribed before doing their job, and the delays in treatment this causes can be deadly.
After an ambulance took Slava's mother to a state-run hospital in Moldova's second-largest city of Balti, no one attended to the 72-year-old woman with a life-threatening type of thrombosis for three days.
"I have to be honest, we then incentivised the doctor financially," Slava said, requesting that his surname be withheld for fear of being accused of giving a bribe.
The doctor in question finally recommended some tests and a consultation with a heart specialist. But further delays ensued at the hospital, and within days Slava's mother died.
In the capital Chisinau, 34-year-old Antonina risked grave consequences to her health when she refused to pay a bribe of 250 euros ($360) – more than the average monthly salary in Moldova - to have her tonsils removed.
"I fainted in the street and an ambulance took me to hospital. They said there were complications with my heart," Antonina said, asking for her surname to be withheld.
"Somebody I know died because her tonsils affected her heart."
Between April when she fainted and November, Fonari went to seven clinics looking for one where she would not be forced to pay a bribe. She struck lucky in the seventh hospital.
Such tales of corruption among medical workers abound in Moldova, a country of about 4 million wedged between Ukraine and European Union member Romania.
Transparency International, which measures perceived levels of public sector corruption, ranks Moldova 89th - about half-way between least corrupt New Zealand and most corrupt Somalia.
"Health is the most important thing that we have and it's valued the least in our country. Why? Because corruption is everywhere," said Alexandru Covalschi, a psychiatrist who heads Moldova's Centre for the Protection of Rights of Patients and Disabled (CADPI), funded by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the American Bar Association.
"I myself went to a doctor and was asked for money (bribe) to have an X-ray done," he said.
IMPUNITY
There is another way in which corruption in Moldova is putting patients' lives at risk.
Covalschi's non-governmental organisation helps victims of medical workers' mistakes or negligence, claim compensation and, if necessary, takes cases against doctors to court.
But courts themselves are corrupt.
"You cannot separate the protection of patients' rights from corruption in the judicial system," Covalschi said, adding that a sense of impunity is breeding carelessness among doctors.
He cited the example of a pensioner who had a heart attack but was misdiagnosed as having bronchitis by a doctor who examined her hastily. Without appropriate treatment, she died the following day.
Between October and December, Covalschi took 10 cases of complaints against medical workers to the European Court of Human Rights after Moldovan courts ruled in favour of the medical staff.
"Everyone knows that 'doctors' cases' as a rule don't go well in courts, which are not always objective, and claimants in most cases lose lawsuits against state-run medical institutions and do not receive the compensation stipulated by civil law," says CADPI's leaflet.
Officials from Moldova's Centre for Combating Economic Crimes and Corruption, a specialised law enforcement agency, agree that legal proceedings in the country leave much to be desired.
"We do have problems with this (corruption) in the judicial system, they really exist," said Vitalie Verebceanu, former deputy director of the centre, which has been supported by the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. foreign aid agency.
During 2009 the centre started graft probes against 10 barristers and in October it opened a criminal investigation against a regional prosecutor who took 3,000 euros from the accused in exchange for leniency.
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