Learning to demand integrity

Andreea Pietrosel

A documentary has helped turn Romania into a nation of whistleblowers, said Andreea Pietrosel. The Oscar-nominated film Collective follows the investigation into the 2015 fire at Bucharest’s Colectiv nightclub, in which 64 people died and scores more were injured. It’s a story, director Alexander Nanau says, of “how the state covers its incompetence through lies and manipulation.” The club’s owners had used a flammable foam to soundproof the venue and had failed to install a sprinkler system or to provide adequate exits. The owners and the bureaucrats who turned a blind eye to these safety violations were prosecuted. But the film exposes a much deeper rot. Burn victims who were taken to

Bucharest hospitals began dying of infections, and it was soon revealed that disinfectant sold to the facilities had been massively watered down. The entire hospital system was corrupt, whistleblower Camelia Roiu—an anesthesiologist—told the investigators. Everyone it hired, including doctors and nurses, had paid bribes to get in. Suppliers bribed clerks to accept shoddy medical supplies, and administrators bribed government inspectors to say nothing. Since the film came out, “the number of whistleblowers going to the press has exploded.” Most of them, like Roiu, are women. Romanians are learning to denounce the corruption embedded in our society—the first step toward eradicating it.