The Minister of Health talks about a series of last-minute measures that were decided for all of Romania, and which have an impact in this period when many people do not know what is happening with the distribution of iodine pills, but in a recent interview, he provided more details.
The Minister of Health says that he will try to convince the family doctors to distribute the iodine pills after the population is informed, even if they say that the procedure itself is a bureaucratic one, so it remains to be seen what solutions will be found by authorities for all Romanians.
"During this period, we worked on structuring the information campaign, we cannot distribute these tablets without a public information campaign on how to administer and use only in a situation where, God forbid, a situation arises that impose this.
We will not do any kind of distribution until he convinces us, until the world knows what it is about. I assure you that we will find the legal framework that will make distribution to citizens possible. I didn't have any dispute with the family doctors, they told me their point of view, I tried to understand it.
They told me very clearly that they consider it a bureaucratic situation to distribute these pills to patients on their own lists. I told them that, and not in a polemical spirit, that we have responsibility, as administrators of the health system, for all the patients in Romania, therefore also for the patients on our own lists.
I don't think that protecting the health of our patients is a bureaucratic matter. It remains to analyze with colleagues from the National Health Insurance House, we will find a solution, and I believe that many of the family doctors will reflect and become partners, not of us, but of the patients on their lists to help them understand the purpose of distribution.
It does not have to worry the population in any way. We often have a panicky approach, when you talk a lot, people get worried. No, we are responsible, and we do this, as many other European states do, so that we can do this procedure of distributing potassium iodide, useful in the context of an incident, which does not necessarily have to be related to the situation in Ukraine."
