Decisions on Public Health Insurance
The National Insurance Agency has a new president, MEP Cristian Busoi.
Leyla Cheamil, 19.06.2013, 13:43
The relationship between the Romanian Health Ministry and the National Health Insurance Agency will finally be strengthened, to the benefit of patients. This statement was made by Public Health Minister Eugen Nicolaescu, after MEP Cristian Busoi was appointed as the new chief of the Health Insurance Agency. He was nominated for office by Prime Minister Victor Ponta, after the former president Doru Badescu resigned over a scandal triggered by a controversial appointment in the institution’s Board, made by the Presidency.
The new president of the National Health Insurance Agency, Cristian Busoi, said he would strive to make the institution more transparent and closer to the ones with whom it should communicate, namely the citizens and the media. He will also request an audit to be run in the institution, and then will decide on the priorities of his term in office, because, he said, this is an opportunity to implement projects that improve the public health system. One such project is the introduction of the national health card, for whose implementation, Busoi says, a detailed roadmap will soon be made public. On the other hand, he tackled the problem of international pharmaceutical producers, which are allegedly privileged, at the expense of domestic producers. The new president of the Agency said the products and services which will be purchased through a centralized bidding system are currently being analysed.
Another priority for the Agency is the cancer treatment sector, and in this respect the Public Health Ministry is working to update the list of fully or partly subsidized medicines. As far as the clawback system goes, Cristian Busoi believes this tax through which part of the pharmaceutical producers’ profits are returned, is based on a good principle, but should not restrict the patients’ access to medicines. The Romanian healthcare system is currently affected by a number of problems, primarily rooted in the chronic under-financing of the system. The low salaries and poor conditions prompted an exodus of the Romanian healthcare professionals to foreign countries. The president of the Romanian Physicians Society, Vasile Astarastoae, has warned that over 800 doctors have left the country since the beginning of this year, and over 14,000 have done so since Romania’s EU accession in 2007.
