|
RRI newsletter subcription
(e-mail address):
|
| The Romanian Health System Still in Crisis 02/06/2011 |
| (2011-06-02) |
| Last updated: 2011-06-03 13:23 EET |
The Romanian healthcare system is still in crisis in spite of the reform measures announced recently by the health ministry, while doctors and patients are unhappy about the consequences of these changes.
On June 1st, the Health Ministry introduced new rules for financing hospitals in Romania, which are supposed to eliminate discrepancies in the system. These rules change the system of classifying the facilities providing healthcare on grounds of competence, and the way in which they are financed.
Health minister Attila Cseke says that the change related to the funding of the hospitals will lead to significant budget increases for large, high performance hospitals, and will cripple the budgets of under-performing hospitals. The 347 hospitals in question were placed into five categories. Only 7 hospitals, of which two from Bucharest, made it to the first category, the highest rated in terms of performance. Most hospitals, more precisely 220, fell into the low-rated categories.
Here is health minister Attila Cseke: “All the seven class one hospitals benefit from higher budgets. For the 14 hospitals in the class two category, nine will receive more financing and five up to 10% less funding. In class three we have 43 hospitals, of which 29 will have a higher budget. Class four is the one in which we have the highest number of hospitals, 124, and of this number, 40 will benefit from bigger budgets”.
Some hospital managers, however, claim their hospitals received the wrong classification and that, as a result of the new rules being introduced, they will not have money for drugs, patients’ meals and overhead expenses. The minister responded by saying that hospitals which have taken appropriate measures to qualify for a higher classification have the right to apply for reassessment.
However, the ministry and the national health insurance authority have one other problem. Family physicians have decided not to sign their new collective contracts for 2011. Supposed to come into effect on 1st April, it was postponed for 1st June, but still nothing has happened. The ministry and the national health insurance authority claim Family physicians have no reason to refuse signing their contracts with national health insurance since their demands have been met 95%. The president of the FAMILY PHYSICIANS association, Doina Mihaila, says, however, that many demands are yet to be met.
Here she is telling us what these demands are: “We complain about the fact that we are only allowed to see and receive payment for 20 patients a day, which is not good, considering that the computerized system is completely dysfunctional. We also complain about the fact that patients will be forced to get their prescriptions every three months. As for digitization, it is not part of the package, it is a different contract and has to be renegotiated”.
The war between physicians on the one hand and the ministry and national health insurance on the other affects patients worst of all. Without having a contract with the county insurance houses, Family physicians can issue neither prescriptions paid by the national health insurance, nor referrals for tests or hospital admittance.
|
|
| |
WMA |
|
64kbps : |
1
2
3
|
|
|
128kbps : |
1
2
3
|
| |
MP3 |
|
|
64kbps : |
1
2
3
|
|
|
128kbps : |
1
2
3
|
| |
AAC+ |
|
|
48kbps : |
1
2
3
|
|
|
64kbps : |
1
2
3
|
 Historical mascot of
RRI |
2025-04-04
Print
Listen again