The College of Doctors from Romania puts the cannons on the Minister of Health. Alexandru Rafila is accused of making false statements by which he tries to misinform the public opinion. The apple of discord? The malpractice law, a project thought up by the College of Doctors, which was discussed at length in the ministry last year, but without any decision being taken at the time. Now, however, in the middle of an election year, the minister brings forward the heavy arsenal and puts the project on the table like a hot pie, generating votes.
The law of malpractice, dust in the eyes of voters. Photo source: archive
In the midst of an election year, the Minister of Health, Alexandru Rafila, is pulling out of mothballs an older draft law, initiated by the College of Physicians, and which he is now trying to serve to us with improvements. The official recently stated that the malpractice law should be amended and adapted, and in this sense a working group has already been created. “There are two elements here: one that refers to the protection of the medical staff, not only the doctors, because the medical assistants must also benefit from this, but there must still be an insurance system concluded by the medical staff that a party to allow these indemnities to which you refer, but they must not be burdensome either”said the official.
Scandal on the insurance policy
The statement did not remain without an echo, the reactions did not take long to appear. The representatives of the College of Doctors announced that such an initiative was proposed to the ministry since last year, but without success. “The Romanian College of Physicians (CMR) took the initiative and launched into public debate the topic of medical malpractice and the need for a modern law on malpractice medical. The result was a bill sent to the Ministry of Health in May 2023, and which was discussed with the Ministry of Health in June 2023, with no real progress”, the document states. “The draft law of the CMR proposes an efficient mechanism for compensating patients who are victims of medical malpractice and ensures the protection of the doctor who pays the malpractice policy, clarifying the demarcation between professional fault and criminal fault“, says the organization that accuses Rafila of misinforming the public opinion.
However, the minister specified that the project of the College of Doctors, in its initial version, would have made it impossible for a very large number of medical personnel to practice the profession. “The insurance premiums that were there did not have any kind of limit and could lead to the impossibility of obtaining the right to practice freely if they did not pay a large amount, for example 1,000 euros per month to pay a doctor seems a lot to me. It was a system that would have gone down the drain and would have burdened the doctors a lot“, said the minister. But, doctors say, the statement is not true. “It is not the first time that the Minister of Health makes incorrect statements about this bill, which the College of Doctors in Romania has highlighted every time. The lack of interest in the content and benefits of the project leads us to consider that these statements have as their source either the ignorance of the CMR proposals – which were presented to it and which can be publicly consulted, as I previously explained – or an intention to misinform the doctors and the population as a whole”.
All this time, the second principle is fought, the third one loses, the patients still remain the collateral victims of a corrupt system, full of loopholes and legislative loopholes. The case of the man who had a lung removed by mistake, and now has to recover compensation of hundreds of thousands of euros from the “Marius Nasta” Institute of Pneumophthisiology, remains more than edifying.
