The Minister of Health, Alexandru Rogobete, criticizes unjustified transfers of patients from public hospitals to private clinics. He believes that in the collective mind the idea was created that at the public hospital you go to die, and at the private hospital everything is rosy, “if you have money”.
Minister of Health, Alexandru Rogobete PHOTO gov.ro
Alexandru Rogobete was asked, on Saturday, on the Insider Politic show, which is the most scandalous phenomenon he encountered in the system. He replied that, from his point of view, the most scandalous thing is the unjustified transfer of patients from public to private hospitals and explained that over 90% of patients are not sent to private hospitals, but to personal offices.
“Here the difference must be made very clearly. Because when we say private, in the private system, we are talking about individual private offices, we are talking about the offices of some doctors and we are talking about private hospitals. Or, it is also unfair for the private sector to say that patients are unjustifiably transferred from public to private. Because, in fact, the largest proportion, over 90 or so percent, are not transferred to private hospitals. They are transferred to personal offices”explained Alexandru Rogobete.
Increasing outpatient work hours
He specified why he decided to increase the working hours in the specialized outpatient clinic until 8 p.m.
“It is not my ambition or stubbornness. It is not more work, in fact. It does not mean that the doctor will work twice as much. It means that in public hospitals where it is possible – and according to our calculations in more than 60% of them it is possible – for the medical specialties for which it is possible and for which there is addressability, and there is for many, the hospital should extend its schedule in the specialized outpatient clinic until 8 p.m. This means that certain doctors will do the specialized ambulatory in shifts. It does not mean that he comes at 8 in the morning and leaves at 8 in the evening. It means that one doctor comes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday from 8 in the morning and another doctor comes from 2 to 8 in the evening. So practically two shifts are created in the specialized outpatient clinic”said the Minister of Health.
He pointed out that there are hospitals where this is already happening, which shows that it can be done. Rogobete also explained the motivation of this decision.
“How many of us can go to the cardiologist in the specialist outpatient clinic at a public hospital at 10 o’clock in the morning? Very few. Only if we take a day off or if we are absent. Or is this program intentionally kept only in the morning what does it actually favor? It favors the transfer of the patient from the public environment to private individual offices. Either this is not correct”Alexandru Rogobete sent.
Preconception regarding state hospitals
The Minister of Health also stated that, in the collective mind, the idea was created that at the public hospital you go to die, and at the private hospital everything is rosy, “if you have money”. He was asked if this dispute can stop.
“Yes, I think so. I strongly believe that yes and I am working in this direction. For years there has been talk about the public hospital versus the private hospital. This versus has done a lot of harm to the system, in fact. Because it has changed the collective mentality. In the collective mentality, this idea has been created, that in the public hospital you go to die, and in the private hospital everything is rosy. If you have money. I think the time has come to talk about the health system, period, which is made up of a public component or of certain services offered in a public regime and of a private component or of medical services offered in a private regime”said the Minister of Health.
Rogobete stated that we are at the point where many services are equal from a public-private point of view.
“And I’ll give you an example, the radiotherapy services. In the public system, in the period 2023-2024, the Ministry of Health built and commissioned 12 public radiotherapy centers throughout the country, and there are certainly private radiotherapy centers as well. They are billed identically. The patient does not pay anything extra, neither public nor private, and the regime is, from a medical point of view, unitary. I believe that if we manage to overcome this conflict that has done us a lot of harm and we end up establishing a fair, transparent and good-faith partnership between the two systems, this is the only way we can actually develop a unique health system”Alexandru Rogobete also declared.
