HealthMin Costache: Too many patients, not enough hospitals; we have beds law forbids us to use

Health Minister Victor Costache claims "there are too many patients and not enough hospitals" in Romania, adding that, until new hospitals are built, we should, "in the best interest of the patients," use the hospitals that do have beds, but those beds cannot be used right now because of the law.

The Minister said a patient out of two dies in hospitals "for nothing."

"One patient out of two dies for nothing in our hospitals. We have too many patients and not enough hospitals. We struggle to build regional hospitals and we have managed to start this mega infrastructure project that is so important for the patients in Romania. But the first hospitals will be built in 2027. And I keep saying that we need a map. These hospitals will be built in Cluj, Iasi and Craiova. What should we do with the rest of the country? We need to modernise the public hospitals that we do have. (...) Paradoxically, we have beds in hospitals that we don't use because the law doesn't allow us to. Until we modernise the existing hospitals and build new ones, let's use the hospitals that we do have in the patient's best interest," Costache told a press conference on Wednesday.

The Minister also added the patients suffering from a heart attack are treated through the "heart attack" priority actions programme, which functions based on an order from 2018, in parallel with the intensive care programme.

Regarding the OUG on the modification and supplementation of Law No. 95 on healthcare reform, he specified the national programmes of the Ministry of Health and the CNAS (National Health Insurance House) received more money.

"The Ordinance refers to the national healing programmes of the House and the priority actions of the Ministry of Health for the critical patients. In both cases, the budget got supplemented by up to 40-50 per cent in the case of the priority actions and also the national programmes received significantly more money. Moreover, we have firm promises from the Prime Minister, although this doesn't depend on him alone, but also on the capacity of the medical teams to have a good budgetary execution, which means, of course, that some of the cases considered must also be treated in order for more money to be earmarked once with the revision. (...) The national programmes of the House received 300 million in the first part of the year already," Costache said.

He denied any political tensions existed related to the Ordinance: "I assure you there are no tensions between the presidency, the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Health. (...) We are frequently discussing with President Iohannis and I assure you that President Iohannis is very much concerned with the healthcare system, and he wants all of us to overcome this deadlock and have a modern, European healthcare system. That desideratum of his campaign to place the patient at the core of the system wasn't for nothing," he added.