The Ministry of Health announces the unblocking of 7,600 vacancies in the public system in an attempt to reduce the staffing crisis, just weeks before the general strike announced by Sanitas for July 28. The vice president of Sanitas, Răzvan Gae, says, however, that the measure covers only part of the staff shortage and warns that uncompetitive salaries and difficult working conditions continue to fuel the exodus of employees. For his part, health policy expert Sorin Paveliu believes that the problem cannot be solved by centralized decisions and claims that hospital managers should be able to hire staff based on their own budgets, not on Government approvals.
The Ministry of Health has announced the unblocking of more than 7,600 vacant positions in the state health system, a measure intended to at least partially reduce the acute staff shortage faced by hospitals.
The most jobs are requested for medical assistants – approximately 3,000 – and for doctors – approximately 1,900, according to the requirements sent by the managers of the health facilities. The announcement comes at a tense time, with health unionists preparing for a general strike and authorities trying to respond to a staffing crisis that is particularly affecting key specialties such as emergency, anaesthesia, intensive care, cardiology and neurology.
The staffing requirements were submitted by hospital managers following an analysis of actual shortages, and the Ministry of Health decided to unlock these posts to cope with the growing pressure on the system. In the past year, more than 5,000 doctors took the residency exam, and the approximately 240 post-secondary health schools have at least 15,000 graduates annually. However, the job opening comes as trade unionists warn that there is a real shortage of nurses of around 27,000 nationally.
The 7,600 positions only cover a quarter of the real deficit
The Vice President of Sanitas, Răzvan Gae, told “Adevărul” that the unblocking of positions is an insufficient and temporary measure, which does not solve the fundamental problems of the health system, related to salaries and working conditions.
“The Interim Minister of Health, Mr. Atila Cseke, admitted that it is necessary to unblock the positions, because the managers complain that they no longer have enough staff, especially that during the holidays, when one of a team of three or four nurses is on leave, the others are overworked, which leads to rapid exhaustion, especially among assistants and nurses, where the deficit is major, while for doctors the situation is slightly better due to residents and the possibility of being pay for guards”Răzvan Gae explained.
The trade unionist emphasized that the measure is only one of short-term survival:
“As for the unlocking of 7,600 vacancies announced by the Ministry of Health, this only covers a quarter of the actual shortfall of around 27,000 nationally, which only helps to get through the summer as payroll is behind and many will be out of the system shortly due to heavy workloads and mental stress.
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In the last two years, about 1 in 4 or even 1 in 2 employees, especially stretcher bearers and nurses, have left because the wages do not justify the effort and commuting, preferring to work in and at the supermarket in some situations, which makes the health system extremely attractive”the vice president of Sanitas also pointed out.
Unlocking positions in hospitals by the Government is the “definition of bankruptcy”
The expert in public health policies, Sorin Paveliu, harshly criticized the way in which the human resource is managed in the health system, considering that the centralized approach of blocking and unblocking positions is wrong and ineffective.
Regarding the need to unblock positions and the current staff management model, the expert in public health policies, Sorin Paveliu, declared for “Adevărul”:
“The Government’s approach is not correct. Normally, hospital managers should have the power to hire as many medical personnel as they deem necessary, without the need to block or unblock positions from the Government. Depending on the hospital’s budget, the manager should hire as many people as he needs. In this way, hospitals would no longer be dependent on the public budget, but would better manage their sources of income. If the money is not enough, then they would change their grid of services. The public budget should not deal with the payment of salaries, but the current model is the definition of bankruptcy.”
Romania, among the European states with the largest shortage of health personnel
Romania is among the European states most seriously affected by the shortage of medical personnel, and according to the European Labor Authority’s report for the year 2025, no less than twelve health professions, from doctors and nurses to paramedics and veterinarians, register a significant labor shortage.
Regarding the number of doctors and medical staff in relation to the population, Romania ranks fifth in the European Union in terms of deficit, being exceeded only by the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium and Bulgaria.
Internally, the data provided by the Ministry of Health reveal a shortage of more than 30,000 doctors and nurses, and about a quarter of the specialists trained in the country choose to practice their profession abroad, which worsens the situation even more, especially in small hospitals and in rural areas, where certain specializations have completely disappeared, and for family doctors, for example, the deficit exceeds 1,500 positions, according to estimates of the College of Physicians.
