CORRUPTION IMPACT ON HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

Medical system is one of the public sector directly affected by corruption, with a negative impact on society. Mostly, corruption affects people’s confidence in public institutions, undermines the sense of justice, and the quality of medical act or public administration are generally questioned. The presence of Covid-19 pandemic along with economic difficulties that countries were facing at the end of 2019, outlined the elements needed to set up a crisis situation. The most affected and hard-to-try public systems was the healthcare sector, and it was necessary to identify solutions that would prove useful in the face of the aggressive spread of the virus and the exponential increase in cases of disease. In this way, was drawn an opportunity for corruption to flourish in healthcare sectors around the world, the main cause being the mismanagement of financial resources allocated to the fight against pandemic. Procurement of goods and services for a proper treatment against disease, has generated favorable conditions for the embezzlement of healthcare funds, by instant appearance of companies specialized in sales segment, and by involving nepotism and favoritism in the procedures for awarding public contracts. Like so, the research explores the recent connection between corruption and COVID-19 pandemic. In this study the information collected from OECD, Transparency International Index, World Health Organization and from Romanian judicial system will be analyzed to underline the factors of corruption, to elaborate multi-level approach that reveals corruption’s appearance and evolution, to indicate the relation between public health and corruption acts. The aim is to achieve objectives like building, developing and protecting an impartial healthcare system, strengthening the integrity of medical act through education, prevention and responsibility, and developing rigorous mechanisms of administrative verification.