Ombudsman recommends Minister of Health to reanalyze obligation for asymptomatic COVID patients to stay in hospital

The Ombudsman on Thursday recommended the Minister of Health, Nelu Tataru, to reanalyze with celerity the regulation regarding the situation of the persons who tested positive for COVID-19 but have no symptoms, considering the recommendations of the international forums, and to take all the necessary measures so that the legal provisions referring to the consent of the patients be observed, in the case of the persons who are found positive and hospitalized for it.

The Ombudsman filed a constitutionality challenge with the Constitutional Court in respect to article 25 paragraph (2) of Law No. 95/2006 and article 8 of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 11/2020, while claiming that the law is not clear enough, it lacks predictability and leaves the entire matter of the restrictive measures meant to combat and prevent the spreading of communicable diseases to be regulated through secondary normative acts, specified the same source.

This means that an administrative body will have the possibility to take such measures that will restrain individual freedom, while only the Parliament is entitled to enact such restrictions, according to the Constitutional Court Decision No. 157/2020, the Ombudsman also showed.

The Ombudsman submitted several requests with the Ministry of Health, asking for the examination of the situation created and for the elimination of the obligation for persons who are found to be COVID-19 positive to stay hospitalized, even if they do not have any symptoms.

In the Ombudsman's opinion, Romania is the only state in the European Union that forced COVID patients to stay hospitalized during the state of emergency and the state of alert alike, even if when the respective persons did not have any symptoms.