The law-and-order has left licensed veterinarians without their main source of income overnight. There will be an exodus of young doctors, warns the guild.
The doctors who have a contract with the state for veterinary health services woke up overnight that from the 10,000 lei they received in 2025, they will be left with only 5,000 lei/office. It is money that they have been receiving for about 5 years since, also following some signals that the sanitary-veterinary surveillance services in the rural environment – vaccinations, catography, counseling, biosecurity – will remain in the air, because young doctors are no longer interested in settling in the village, where the number of animals is constantly decreasing and the peasant household is close to disappearing.
The problem of allocating a ceiling/cabinet was then raised so as to stop the exodus of young doctors from the beleaguered counties. Once established, from this money, 10,000 lei/month/concessional doctor’s office, doctors in contract with the sanitary-veterinary and food safety departments from all over the country benefited. Until December 2025, when they learned they would be left with only half that amount. “We understand that we all need to contribute to this effort, but half is far too much,” warn veterinarians.
The amount he would receive in 2026 for an 8-hour-a-day program, intended to cover some costs related to the field activity – transporting samples, picking up products and types, professional training, advice for animal owners and other related activities – is 5,000 lei per month for each contract, being exempt from VAT. The doctors in the counties with very small herds of animals used this money to pay their technicians, who are finding it more and more difficult anyway.
“There was no discussion, no one had any discussion with us”, declared Ioan Bozgă, the president of the Olt College of Veterinarians, for “Adevărul”.
“You’ll see what halving that amount will do”
Oltul is, along with the counties of Vâlcea, Teleorman, Vrancea, Vaslui and partially Dolj, says Dr. Bozgă, among those with big problems, which in 2019 risked running out of veterinarians. Livestock numbers in the households decreased so much that it was no longer motivating for any young doctor to settle in the village. Even the experienced ones were not very good, only that they were tied to the localities served by the many years of practice in which the villagers became much more than “customers”.
“A part of the country had left, especially the young people, because we had no way to survive. You will also now see what halving this amount will produce. Think that the minimum wage is somewhere around 4,000 and something and from the summer it will be 4,300, that’s if you pay an average worker with the minimum wage. And you can’t do it without a technician.” explains the veterinarian.
The news of the halving of the ceiling came after a year 2025 and so marked by delays of almost half a year in payment. All this time the doctors were forced to borrow in order to be able to pay the salaries of the technicians.
The law that established the ceilings/cabinet was promoted, says Dr. Bozgă, at the pressure of doctors from counties with very small herds of animals, because in areas where animal breeding has remained the basic occupation, veterinarians can ensure their income from charging animal breeders. “We have much fewer animals than in the hill and mountain areas, where there are thousands. This law was made under the pressure of these poor counties, in order to maintain the medical personnel with higher and secondary education, because they were going to England, Germany, they couldn’t come with the money from home”, explained Bozgă.
The news, very bad for the concessionaire doctors, also sparked other comments, coming from animal owners dissatisfied with the interactions with certain veterinarians. However, such issues are resolved through legal proceedings, draws the attention of the president of the College of Veterinarians Olt. There are doctors who were sanctioned for various wrongdoings and who were forced to leave.
“In any profession it happens, only that the County Veterinary Directorate has the legal basis to terminate contracts, to finish with such people who do not do their duty. So it has this legal basis. Executives who complain that they have nothing to do are powerless or involved in nonsense with some if some do but the rest don’t. Of course, it is enough to have one, two, three cases for the discussions to move towards this. But there are areas where there are no doctors, they didn’t want to. For example, Slatina stayed in Olt county for six years without anyone wanting to take her. We have five communes where they have never been occupied, no doctor wants to bid there, because the auction is done through SEAP, with specifications, with offers. That shows they don’t care. And now the contracts were being concluded, they are ending in May. There are people who don’t want to bid anyway, they say – that’s it, we’re retiring, we’re leaving, we’ll leave you with the money – and that’s what they were saying beforehand, not knowing that the amount would decrease”, the head of Olt College also said.
Offers from outside are constantly circulating in the guild, and it is not difficult for young doctors to choose to leave for £3,000. “They spend two thousand, but they have one left. Or here was the only reason for the young people to stay, because we helped the recent graduates to make their offices so that they could stay in the country. They are usually speakers of foreign languages, or in these conditions of disinterest… The doctor is obliged to have an average staff. He pays him with that money, but how does he cover the office expenses?”insisted the doctor, categorizing the moment as a “delicate” one.
The veterinarians submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister of Romania, but they are not holding out much hope, especially since it is rumored that the initial discussion was to completely abandon the ceiling, not to halve it.
According to Dr. Bozgă, it will be the most difficult for concessionary doctors who provide services in several localities and who employ several technicians.
“You often leave there, instead of payment, with five eggs or a kilo of milk as thanks”
The veterinarian Dan Iova provides services in two constituencies in Olt: his native commune, Vulpeni, and the neighboring commune, Dobrețu. It is approximately 20 km from the entrance to the first town to the exit from the other, in a straight line. The Faculty of Veterinary Medicine is not an easy one at all, and the activity after it is not so easy either. You cannot ask a young doctor of 27-28-30 years old, says the doctor, to settle in the village and be satisfied with nothing. “He at least needs a car, don’t ride a bike”says Dr. Iova.
His concession expires in April and he has decided to give up either one or both towns. Most likely, if he sticks with one, he’ll drop the technician as well.
“Many times, instead of payment, you leave there with five eggs or a kilo of milk as thanks for doing the animal good. The big problem is that we are in an area where there are no more animals. Effectiveness is halved or worse. If in Vulpeni, 15 years ago, there were 1,100 cattle, now there are 200. Since there are so few animals, we have no other sources of income, and the caseload is reduced, and the degree of poverty in the localities is as high as ours. Knowing them all, you can’t go and tax them… You can’t, because we know them, we’ve known each other for 50 years. There are very few pigs left, they have all shrunk. They used to raise a pig or two for the household and one or two for sale. They didn’t earn much, but it was money that came all at once. But now you can’t. And because of African swine fever, but also because people are old and can no longer”the doctor also said.
It is unlikely that, if he gives up the Dobrețu district, there will be another doctor interested, Dr. Iova believes. By contract, he is obliged to provide sanitary-veterinary supervision for another 6 months, but after that period people will have a problem.
“People will no longer have the opportunity to get a certificate for APIA, because there will no longer be a veterinary environment that has access to the data, a database that we pay for. There are all kinds of situations. I’ve been a doctor for 30 years and I’ll probably go to Dobrețu for treatment, I find it hard to be with people, but without having any obligations”. the vet also said.
Veterinarians are of two categories, says doctor Dan Iova: veterinarians from big cities and veterinarians from the country – who sit in boots, get dirty with dung and who are not ashamed to smell animals. “We are not like the ones in the city veterinary clinics, where you come cooked, perfumed and wait for the client who also comes, with the small, fluffy, curly bichon. It’s completely different. Pets in the country… Perception has changed a bit in the country too, they no longer keep them all tied in a one-meter chain, some still vaccinate them, apart from the anti-rabies vaccine that we make mandatory. In Vulpeni, we vaccinated 800 of dogs in December. They are not so cuddly, they still bite you, because in addition to the vaccine, those who do not have a microchip are read and you enter the data into the computer, you assumethe doctor explains what part of the activity in the licensed doctor’s office entails.
He could afford to pay the veterinary technician a gross salary of 7,000 lei. Since January, he has informed him that he can no longer do this. “I discussed with him, if he wants, to stay with 5,000 lei. Because with 7,000 lei we really can’t, no one brings money from home to help the state”, added the doctor.
Doctor Dan Iova claims that they would all accept the reduction of income by a reasonable percentage, 10-15%. “We don’t want to be a privileged guild. It was said that it was taken from the whole country. Only it was not taken from the whole country, only taxes and fees were taken”, concluded the doctor.
The danger of the abandonment of localities
The implications of abandoning the sanitary-veterinary supervision of the territory are very big, explains doctor Dan Iova. 2025 was the year in which a person died of anthrax in Romania, a zoonosis that is transmitted from animals to humans, and this in the conditions where there were delays in payment to concessionary veterinarians and in certain counties certain vaccines were not given to sheep and goats. A man died of rabies, the doctor recalled, something almost unthinkable in 2025. The licensed veterinarians vaccinate against anthrax (or black bug), perform tuberculin (which is a diagnostic method used to detect whether a person has developed an immune response to the bacteria that causes tuberculosis) – tuberculosis being another disease transmitted from animals to humans, along with other activities that concern both human and animal health.
“There are probably counties where the activity will go close to normal, where there are many animals and diverse cases, and counties where it will suffer a lot”, concluded the doctor.
