Romanian media on Thursday debates the death of Raluca Stroescu, a young manager for Ernst&Young Romania, whose passing was blamed by a newspaper earlier this week on exhaustion at work. Raluca was buried at a cemetery in Ploiesti, north of Bucharest in the presence of the family and hundreds of young people yesterday.
Experts could not provide clear information on the causes of her death on Tuesday and Wednesday and that the necessary data will be available within weeks, but told reporters that she might have died of heart failure.
The Evenimentul Zilei newspaper on Wednesday reported that the background cause of the death was physical exhaustion as she was working too much for a salary of a couple of thousand euro, which is a very good salary in Romania.
Gardianul on Thursday quotes Raluca’s former colleagues who say that prior to her death she “was looking like a ghost. She was in a hurry. She had to put up a reportâ€. According to the newspaper, “Raluca had worked so hard to become somebody until she collapsed. Still, who is to blame?â€
“Is it worth dying for a salary of 2,000 euro?â€, Evenimentul Zilei wonders in its edition today. The newspaper reports that Raluca’s death has sparked a huge public response about the conditions of work Romanian employees have to cope with and whether is it a good thing to abandon personal life for the sake of money and career.
The issue of career opportunities and what one can do to seize them is very hot in Romania where economy has been booming for years and salaries are still low compared to other countries, prompting major companies abroad to relocate businesses here.
Gandul quotes a doctor who examined the woman’s body, according to whom Raluca was underfed as she weighed less than 40 kilos. “She was not eating or she couldn’t assimilate food†the doctor said, while others said she also had problems with her heart and hormones.
Raluca, 31, had been working for Ernst&Young Romania for two years and a half. She previously worked for Vodafone. E&Y’s only manager that could be contacted by Cotidianul yesterday refused to comment the tragedy.
HotNews.ro, Apr 26, 2007
This post was written by bullets on April 26, 2007
I knew Raluca well, having met her during a conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union hosted in Bucharest. We subsequently lost touch after exchanging letters over years.
I was thus very shocked, when I googled her name, to find out she had passed on. It is very unfortunate that I never knew much about her family.
Masiza,
Pretoria, South Africa