Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said on Friday that the pay of the medical personnel needs to be linked to the activity of hospitals, and that squandering in the healthcare sector can no longer continue.
Speaking of healthcare spending of the Romanian state through the Health Fund, he said that in 2014 - 2015, these expenses accounted for 11% of the current public revenues, but their share has now increased to 14 - 16%. "Just bear in mind that this means very large amounts, each percentage means a huge figure. For instance - 49 billion in 2021, 54 billion in 2022, 59 billion in 2023, 73 billion in 2024, in summer 2025 - an estimated 77 billion," the prime minister declared in a press conference, said Agerpres.
Staff expenditures have grown from one year to another, because in Romanian healthcare, this figure isn't linked to the number of cases resolved. The bulk of allocations is dedicated to personnel expenses anyway, and then no one takes the trouble to make correct savings or to improve performance, because they have no reason to, Bolojan said.
"At certain hospitals, personnel costs exceed 90%. My question is: what is left for medicines, for tests?! Can anything be done for the patients?! (...) We have fictitious or inflated settlements in many cases. (...) There are lots of innovative medicines, they are expensive, and I believe that Romania is one of the few countries where the share of innovative medicines is much higher than that of generic ones, which solve the treatment for 90% of diseases just as well," he remarked.
Bolojan also tackled the issue of extended sick leaves: "Looking at statistics there are some bridges visible in critical periods between holidays and a peak in scheduled leaves - exactly four days - and it is obvious that this invalidates the statistics, there cannot be such high numbers of sickness in specific periods."
According to him, "the mix between the public and private system has resulted in the state insurance system taking care of the expenses and the private sector collecting the gains.
He called on the health insurance companies to seriously take on the role of defender of the interests of the patients and the state, "because otherwise these increases will become unbearable."
"This squandering can no longer continue," the prime minister cautioned.
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