The Oncological Institute in Bucharest is facing such a serious crisis of medicines that doctors, because they have nothing left to treat their patients, send them home or redirect them to other hospitals. Iolanda Gheorghiu, the founder of the Association of Oncological Patients from Romania, explained to “Adevărul” what are the reasons for this blockage and what solutions would exist to solve the situation.
Due to lack of funds, the Bucharest Oncological Institute sends its patients home. Source: iob.ro
Dozens of cancer patients who came to the Oncological Institute in Bucharest to receive treatment were sent home. The reason is hallucinatory: the largest oncology hospital in the country has run out of money for medicines. At the beginning of September, the hospital management requested 10 million lei for the purchase of the necessary medicines. However, the Health Center transferred only half of the amount, and that only happened at the end of the month. Trying to solve some of the problems, the representatives of the Bucharest Oncological Institute contacted the Elias University Emergency Hospital in order to obtain the necessary medicines, receiving treatment for 10 patients.
Who is to blame for this situation? How could it be solved? What is to be done in the future? There are questions that have remained unanswered, because the management of the hospital has not provided us, until this moment, with any point of view, although we have requested it twice. However, I have spoken to oncology patients, who are desperate. People have told us that they have run out of patience.
The money issue is a political one. “Everything goes through the politicians’ agenda”
“I remember an event to which I was invited and in which a former Minister of Health also participated. We then proposed to initiate a National Screening Program for breast cancer. I was told that it is not possible. I asked why and was told, “Because it’s not on our agenda.” And then it was confirmed to me for the thousandth time that everything must first be put on the agenda of some politicians. The problem there leaves, from their agenda”Iolanda Gheorghiu, founder of the Association of Oncological Patients from Romania, told Adevărul.
The patients’ representative is of the opinion that this acute financial crisis in which the health system is deepening is a consequence of the chaotic management of the allocated sums of money. “The basic problem, from which everything starts, is poor money management. In addition to being scarce, the money is also poorly allocated. Because if they were well managed, they would reach. Let me explain what I mean. In Romania, there is no register in which oncological patients can be entered according to the disease they suffer from and its stage. I am referring to a database at the level of each county, which is not related to the National or County Statistics Institute, because the data arrive there after a few years. They are not updated on time. If you will look, you will see that at this moment the data has stopped somewhere in the year 2022”. Therefore, because there is no record of the number of sick people, their diseases and their stage, no one knows exactly how much money to ask for, how much money to allocate and where. “The price is different for each drug and for each type of cancer. If we are talking about breast cancer, the treatment for a diagnosed person in stage I of the disease is different, and completely different for a person in stage III with metastases.” explains Iolanda Gheorghiu. He is of the opinion that a detailed register would be a solution so that money is no longer distributed so chaotically.
Medication settlement can lead to outliers
Another very important aspect that the founder of the association wanted to specify is related to the drugs that are bought from pharmacies. “There are drugs that, in theory, should be issued to patients, but when the patient goes to the pharmacy, they are told that there are no funds. Or he is told that the medicine in question is settled only for certain patients. A concrete example is Herceptin. It is settled by the House, it is free for breast cancer, but not settled for stomach cancer. But we are talking about the same drug! It is loud in the sky! Or there are drugs for brain cancer. but not for the renal one”.
Hospitals, says Iolanda Gheorghiu, cannot stock up on medicines because there is a specific treatment for each type of cancer. “And this treatment becomes specific depending on the severity of the disease. You have no way of knowing which patients will come to you in a week or two. Then you, as a hospital, give the medicine to the patients who need it, in the order in which they present themselves to you. The doctor is obliged to help the one who came. What will happen to the patients who come tomorrow…maybe there will be medicine, maybe not. Doctors are put in a very delicate situation”.
Casa de Asigurări, with arrears also at pharmacies
There are patients who cannot buy their compensated medicines because the pharmacies, in turn, like the hospitals, do not receive their money from the Health Center, says the president of the association. “And they have nothing to pay the suppliers with. Many are tired of paying out of their own pocket waiting endlessly for money from the House. Then there are the patients who bought their medicines at full price, and then sued the Health Center to get their money back. And they won in court.”
Iolanda Gheorghiu believes that the problem will be solved when it is really wanted. “Nothing is going to happen until the politicians really want to do something about it. To roll up his sleeves, get to work, sort through some papers and give direction. Because we are spinning in a vicious circle in which several institutions of the state are caught, they are spinning around the queue for such a bitter time, and everything, absolutely everything, is borne by the poor sick people who have no fault”.
The shortage of cancer drugs has boomed online traffic
Ioana Cristea has been an oncology patient for several years and considers the problem of the financial crisis facing the hospital “a referral to death for all patients who need treatment, but do not receive it”. Whoever has money buys from the pharmacy, from the internet. This is how online traffic with oncological drugs flourished. I don’t agree with such a practice, you can’t know who you’re buying from and what you’re buying, but here, there are desperate people who would do anything to survive”. There are patients, says Ioana Cristea, who buy their medicines from abroad, because they are completely lacking here. “But not everyone has that opportunity. And it’s not right.”
