Interim Health Minister Cseke Attila on Tuesday said that Romania's healthcare system will become non-functional unless a national budget revision is performed in two or three weeks
He added that it is absolutely necessary for Romania to have a government that makes a budget revision.
"In two to three weeks, if a budget revision is not made, the functioning of the Romanian healthcare system will be at a high risk of non-functioning both on the levels that concern the budget or the operation of the institutions financed by the Ministry of Health, as well as on the level provided by the National Health Insurance House (CNAS). It is absolutely necessary to have a government that can make a positive budget revision for the healthcare budget. If that does not happen, a budget revision solution will have to be found through Parliament very, very urgently, but it is a way with certain risks, from my point of view," Cseke told a news conference, agerpres reports.
According to him, "we can't wait any longer."
"We can't wait any longer. There is no longer any prerogative of the Minister of Health, regardless of whether he is interim or with a full mandate, to move amounts of money from one title to another, because we no longer have where to take these amounts of money. From where we could get it, we made these transfers. From here on out, only a government with a full mandate can do these things."
As for the institutions they finance at the Ministry of Health, Cseke Attila said that by the end of the year amounts worth almost RON 800 million and "very urgently" RON 227 million are needed to secure the operation of the systems that depend on the budget of the Ministry of Health in November.
Thus, RON 102 million are needed for wage expenses at emergency reception units, RON 44 million for material expenses, mainly medicines, at emergency reception units, RON 25 million for material expenses at the Ambulance Service and RON 56 million for completing the funding of the National HIV/AIDS Programme.
"These amounts must be allocated to the Ministry of Health by the beginning of November at the latest. If that did not happen, there would be a risk that these emergency departments and the Ambulance Service will no longer be able to perform their role as a public health service. For December, the same expenses that amount to RON 550 - 560 million on several levels," the official said.
Cseke mentioned that without budget revision, CNAS no longer has the necessary amounts to finance the healthcare system.
According to the interim minister, throughout the rest of the year RON 6.4 billion are needed to fund hospitals, programmes run by the National Insurance House, subsidised medicines and everything that is in the CNAS portfolio.
