The healthcare domain is one of the major dissatisfactions of Romanians, as shown by all opinion polls. Suffocating bureaucracy, old hospitals, doctors offices without basic equipment, corrupt physicians who condition the medical act on bribe, rigged contests for filling managerial positions and purchases at inflated prices. Nothing is missing from the range of comorbidities of the healthcare system in Romania. Moreover, the system has been faced with a lack of personnel for a long time. Although, in recent years, Romanian doctors have received salaries comparable to those in Western Europe, many continue to leave the country, while in the Romanian countryside, many communes do not have doctors, and in the cities that have hospitals there is not enough medical personnel.
This week, the manager of the Dr. Victor Gomoiu Clinical Children’s Hospital in Bucharest, Maria Enescu, has publicly drawn attention to the difficult situation in the medical unit’s on-call room, given that, she says, there is an acute lack of staff, and the nurses are exhausted. The shortage of personnel, the people in the system say, was worsened by the authorities decision to block the tender for positions in state institutions, a measure from a larger package, decided by the governing coalition made up of the Social Democratic Party – PSD and the National Liberal Party – PNL with the avowed intention to reduce the budget deficit. But, the press notes, in a year marked by European parliament, local, legislative and presidential elections, politicians are good at sweetening the bitter pill that they have prescribed themselves.
The Social Democratic Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said on Thursday that a priority of his government team is to rapidly solve the issue of resident doctors who passed the specialty exam at the end of last year. There are approximately 4,500 doctors in whom the Romanian state has invested hundreds of millions of euros, and we must make sure that we keep them in the country. That is why, in the next period, the Health Ministry and the Development Ministry must update the lists of vacant positions and present the Government with new memoranda for tender for positions. I also ask the Finance Ministry to cooperate to make things happen quicker said the Prime Minister, at the beginning of the first Government meeting of 2024.
The memoranda initiated by the two ministries regarding the tendering for vacancies in the healthcare system could be approved next week, the Health Minister, Alexandru Rafila, a party colleague of the PM announced also on Thursday. Thus, each health unit will be able to organize contests to fill vacant doctor or nurse positions. From the opposition, Save Romania Union – USR claims that there is a deficit of over 20,000 nurses and auxiliary medical personnel and of about 8,000 doctors, across Romania. (LS)
