Health Minister Alexandru Rogobete declared on Tuesday that the national screening and prevention strategy, which is to be developed at the ministry, will also include the mental health area that will address the addiction component.
"Gambling, when we talk about physical or online gambling, actually represents an addiction to virtual space. (...) Gambling, especially virtual gambling, which, in my opinion, is the most dangerous now because children have much easier access to it than physical gambling, represents a priority for the entire European Union," Rogobete said at the debate organized at the Palace of Parliament by PNL deputy Raluca Turcan and the Save the Children organization on the reform of gambling legislation, in order to protect children and adolescents.
He mentioned that one of his objectives, as Minister of Health, is the area of screening and prevention.
"In Romania, we have been discussing screening for over 20 years and I tell you, regardless of who gets upset, that today in Romania there is no screening or prevention. There were only islands, a few organizations that carried out screening programs or projects, but there is no national vision of screening for different pathologies and here I am mainly referring to cardio and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes, nutritional diseases, oncological diseases, obviously, the neonatal clinic. This is why a working group was established at the level of the Ministry of Health to create, for the first time in Romania, a national screening and prevention strategy, which will include, in addition to the pathologies mentioned, the area of mental health, which will certainly address this addiction component," stated Rogobete.
The Minister of Health added that he wants to implement this strategy, which will be approved by government decision and which will generate future projects from European funds for this important component of health - screening and prevention.
"Gambling and advertising, especially online, for gambling are equivalent to fake news and medical misinformation. They do just as much harm as those medical misinformation messages that present all kinds of speculation that are not scientifically validated and have no medical basis," he argued.
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