Health Minister Alexandru Rogobete highlighted on Friday in Timisoara, within a meeting with specialists and patient representatives on healthcare system reform in Romania, that he opposes the 10 percent budget cuts in the system, but supports introducing performance-based criteria for payments.
"If the request submitted to the Government is not taken into account, the Ministry of Health will not approve this regulatory act, regardless of the consequences. I will not sign the regulation proposing a 10 percent flat cut in medical staff incomes, but I am in favour of introducing payments based on performance criteria. It is not acceptable for an anaesthetist performing three anaesthesias per year with two intensive care patients to be treated the same as an anaesthetist performing 20 anaesthesias per week and seeing dozens of intensive care patients, yet both receive the same income at the end of the year. Ultimately, this results in financially sustainable difficulty, as many resources end up in areas where there are more department heads than patients," the minister explained.
Furthermore, Alexandru Rogobete emphasised the need for better collaboration between hospitals and outpatient clinics, highlighting the role of family medicine, and stressed that cases which can be treated on an outpatient basis should relieve both Emergency Units and inpatient wards, which should only accommodate patients with clear medical need.
"Hospital managers and doctors, in general, have inverted the pyramid, admitting many patients, sometimes unnecessarily, in order to meet their performance indicators and secure payment. This is neither economically sound nor good management. Consequently, one of my objectives has been to develop specialised outpatient care (...)," the Health Ministry official explained.
The minister also spoke to the attendees about the need to reform healthcare funding and to build new hospitals. He mentioned that some hospitals are currently under construction and that new medical assistance centres have been established.
"We could build across the entire territory of Romania. If we do not reform the way healthcare services and the medical system are funded, it will no longer be sustainable over time. The National Health Insurance House budget in 2020 was 41 billion lei. In 2025, we closed the budget at 87 billion. And still, in this country, there are hospitals where you cannot find paracetamol, because the payment system and its mechanisms are not updated on time," the Health Minister pointed out.
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