About hospitals and doctors
The Romanian Government started the reform of the healthcare system
Corina Cristea, 06.12.2016, 13:40
Enjoying high professional standards but discontented with their pay level and working conditions, an increasing number of physicians choose to leave Romania. Figures are increasingly worrying because, since 2007, the year of Romanias EU accession, over 43 thousand experts have asked for documents allowing them to do their jobs abroad, after the Romanian state spent more than 3 and a half billion lei for their training. And doctors exodus seems to never end. While in one year 3,000 physicians enter the system, 3,500 submit their documents to leave and work abroad. Consequently, Romania has been left with only half of the physicians it needs. The figures have been presented by Minister Vlad Voiculescu, who announced a strategy that should motivate doctors to stay in Romania. The plan includes measures for the next 4 years.
“Hospitals are faced with a major deficit of medical staff and entire towns and villages do not have a family doctor. Motivating the medical staff to stay in Romania is also related to applying salary policies based on professionalism and results, to granting various benefits for doing their job in isolated areas and also to granting financial incentives.
Minister Vlad Voiculescu has said steps have already been taken to give higher salaries to healthcare staff, hospital managers are now being assessed according to improved criteria and contests are more transparent, as all vacancies are published online, on the governments website. The plan, drafted by the Health Ministry with the support of the Presidential Administration and of the World Health Organization, provides for the introduction of measures meant to bring proper salaries to the medical staff, good working conditions and opportunities for professional development.
The project related to the building of three regional hospitals, a new medical residency law, more transparency in organizing and giving access to contests in the healthcare system alongside pay rises are some of the provisions of the healthcare strategy. On the very day when the strategy was launched the Romanian Government signed an agreement with the European Investment Bank worth 1 and a half million euros. The money will be used for hiring experts that are supposed to draft all the documents necessary for funding and building three regional hospitals in Iasi, Cluj-Napoca and Craiova. These three hospitals are part of a network of 8 regional hospitals included in Romanias Healthcare Strategy and in the Regional Operational Programme for the period 2014-2020.
(Translated by L. Simion)
