Minister of Labour and Social Solidarity Marius Budai is scheduled to meet this afternoon leaders of representative social work NGOs to identify solutions that allow NGOs to get involved in checking the conditions at residential care homes for the elderly and disabled.

The meeting will take place at the main offices of the ministry and, according to the ministry, leaders of 11 NGOs have confirmed their participation, namely the National College of Social Workers in Romania (CNASR); the FONSS Federation of Social Work Non-Governmental Organisations ; SERA Romania, the FONCP - Federation of Non-Governmental Organisations for Children; the Foundation for the Development of Social Work; CARITAS Romania; the Archdiocese of Bucharest; World Vision Romania; the Concordia Humanitarian Association, the GERON Foundation, and Hope and Homes for Childrens.

The Legal Resources Centre refused to participate.

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu on Sunday announced the start of urgent inspections of all the residential care homes for the elderly and the disabled.

"First of all, all the residential care homes for children, elderly people and disabled people, either state or privately -run, have to be inspected and all their licences reanalysed. The deadline will be a very short one, one week, under the coordination of the prefects," said Ciolacu.

He added that the Labour Ministry will start discussions with all church leaders and NGOs from Monday for agreements on their involvement in this activity.

"The system must be changed. There cannot be a multitude of control institutions blaming one another. The whole system must be rethought, from licensing, monitoring and control, who licenses and what the licensing requirements are, who monitors and what, clear intervals and procedures, who verifies and what. That's why I want to clarify this system from a legislative point of view so that there are no more loopholes for anyone," Ciolacu said.

Almost 100 elderly people were rescued last week by police officers and organised crime prosecutors after searches at three residential care homes for the elderly in the town of Voluntari, where the elderly, many with disabilities, were beaten, starved and forced to work.

According the investigators, in November 2020, in Ilfov County, two organised criminal groups were allegedly established, for the purpose of exploiting people with disabilities or in vulnerable situations, the exploitation of the victims being carried out by subjecting them to inhuman or degrading treatments, by exploiting their unpaid work through coercion and physical violence. AGERPRES (RO - author: Nicoleta Gherasi, editor: Oana Tilica; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Cristina Zaharia)