We live in Romania “we don’t have”. We have no money. And because we have no money, we have no doctors, we have no nurse, we have no medicines, hospitals, 21st century equipment. In Romania there are no coherent, impact health policies, we do not have prevention, vaccination, screening campaigns. We are not sure that, once hospitalized, we will go out and healthy. The reason? “The fish from the head are concretely imposed, someone, up there, from the Government and the ministry, has never done its duty as it should.” He considers Vasile Barbu, president of the National Association for Patient Protection.
The health system in Romania, chronic patient. Archive
Today we celebrate World Health Day, but Romania has no reason for joy. Because we have nothing to celebrate. On the contrary. We only had to cry at the head of a clinical health system. The guilty are the decision makers who, most of the times, have pursued their own financial interests. Meanwhile, Romania is facing a deep crisis of human resources, funds, a crisis of medicines and with patients who die, many of them, with days.
Poor management
The health system in Romania is on the logs, says Vasile Barbu, first of all due to poor management. “We lack specialists in sanitary management. Each level and every component of the health system has management problems. From the management of financing, the management of the management of the financial means, to the management of the material means, the equipment, and the management of human resources. And when I refer to deficient sanitary management, I mean both small, individual, as well as to Great hospitals“, the patient said.
“I have seen many medical offices, starting at family medicine offices up to polyclinics and hospitals, who have management difficulties. And all these poorly thought out and badly thought out are finally overwhelmed on patients, who have no guilt.”
At present, Romania is also facing a profound crisis of human resources on various specialties and an inefficient territorial distribution. “There is a very bad management at the county level but also a non -harmful distribution of mthe means. And inappropriate funding. Many times, a lot of money is lost due to poorly managed financing. “
Non -existent laws and a system built on nepotisms. “A total debt!”
And the legislative management has its hibbons. “We have a legislation that is contradicted, legal provisions, normative provisions and missing protocols. Although there is the National Authority for Health Quality Management, many public hospitals do not take into account certain standards, minimal working norms and interdisciplinary and interinstitutional relationships. That is, it is a total debt, it works in an indescribable chaos. ”
Vasile Barbu believes that the health system in Romania is built on political interests, nepotisms, obscure financial interests of individuals or groups of individuals. “We are witnessing all kinds of interventions from people who only follow their own interests. The legislative regulations, for example, are thought of by individuals who act in ignorance or just for their own profit. ” The patient gives the management of medical recovery as an example. “In the management of medical recovery, not even 20% of patients benefit from medical recovery after an acute episode of disease or medical maintenance recovery in a chronic situation ”.
The patients in Romania are swallowed by a system that works chaotic, incoherent. “We have no prevention, we do not have hospitals, we do not have enough doctors, we have no medicines. We are in the crisis of sanitary materials, of machines. On the other hand, where there is technique and technology they are not used effectively and at maximum capacity ”.
Vasile Barbu, president of the National Association for Patient Protection. Archive
“We have no specialists, but only politicians”
Vasile Barbu also pointed out that in the year of grace 2025 in Romania we have no functional regional hospital and no large burns. “People who need to think and implement these projects are incompetent. We have no economists, we have no engineers, specialists in investment engineering. They are just politicians. And let’s not forget one thing: the ministers can’t do everything alone. They have teams behind them, people politically called by them and others. And this “organism” must function as anointed, each wheel must turn. While, in us, there is no unity, competence. People who have nothing to do in the system, who have no experience in the field, who do not know, have arrived here. ”
As for high hospitals or modernization through PNRR funds, there have been major deficiencies in attracting these amounts of money, says Vasile Barbu. “We also had an opportunity, there was some money that came from European level for certain goals, objectives that we chose. But setting these goals was a catastrophe, and that’s because we were not realistic. I am not talking about the step by step management of each sequence of this project, a disastrous, unprofessional project ”.
The Romanian health system is not good in the chapter of statistics. Vasile Barbu told us that we do not have, at the moment, data on the degree of mortality on certain pathologies. “Good luck with those from Eurostat, who still make statistics, but they also make them, of course, with the data provided by us. So those cannot be very accurate. ”
Patient: “The faculties are out of treadmill doctors poorly prepared and without vocation”
A bubble of the system also comes from the university, academic environment, the one who brings out the doctors without vocation. “We have set up many universities in recent years. More than necessary. And these universities of medicine and pharmacy produce doctors, but not vocation doctors. They are not well tested. Are not selected. Look at the admission exams in college in medicine and you will see who participates. What grades they had, what averages. ”
And the teachers have their part of guilt, because they accept increasingly low standards. “Look how the situation manages, look what the exams are. ”
Really good students, those with vocation, continues Vasile Barbu, are minorities and taken in a pile with the others, integrated into the system as in a mixer from which only the “chosen” survive. “Out of 3,000 students, 700-800 are very good, exceptional people, with an extraordinary potential. But they are put in a pile with the others. ” The patient refers to the fact that it does not matter how good you are, it matters what relatives you have. “And we put Marcel Ciolacu’s boy on Intensive Care at Matei Balș. It does not matter that he is of note 5. The system to be politicized until saturation ”.
Health expert: “We must implement evidence -based policies, not comet -based policies”
Conf. Univ. Dr. Marius- Ionuţ Ungureanu, from the Public Health Department, the Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences, Babeş- Bolyai Cluj-Napoca University, states that the biggest problem of the health system is the lack of a vision of the direction in which we want to go as a society, from the point of view of the health. “What results from this is that we pause every day with the emotion of the unknown: we do not know when the money will end, we do not know when another building will be torn down, we do not know when the next few days will die pregnant which comes in the system to give birth to a new life. During this time, the people in the first line of the system, most of them being passionate and dedicated, carry on their shoulders a system in which, instead of doing and implementing “evidence -based policies”, we make and implement “policies based on cometry”.
More in the primary and community health care must be invested, especially in the rural areas, says Dr. Ungureanu. “We have no rural hospitals. So, if we want to have healthier Romanians in the rural, we must invest massively in primary and community health care, especially in the rural. This means considerably larger budgets for family medicine, school medicine, community health care. But also rethinking what the primary medical assistance means, by adding to the team of pediatrics, gynecologists, psychologists, but also of those who promote health and prevent disease. Beyond the budgets, we need to rethink and optimize the delivery of services and financing models ”.
The specialist in public health is of the opinion that the system spends the most money to treat diseases, not prevention, and so the resources are not used effectively, says the doctor.
Solutions
First of all, he considers Vasile Barbu, the human resource crisis should be resolved. “And the law must have some provisions, so that human health resources are adapted to needs. Today we have more surgeons than certain medical specialties. But no matter how much you want, you cannot do surgery if you do not have the other specialties. And here’s how we practice a medicine that is not quality and does not register in the patient’s safety regulations.
Secondly, a change in the health law is expected for years and, most likely, we will wait still. “For at least 10 years he is talking about this, but nothing happens. I follow the decision -making transparency from Ministry of Health and including pages of the parliamentary agenda. What can I tell you? Nothing was done! ”, Vasile Barbu also pointed out.
