The Minister of Health sent an official emergency announcement to millions of Romanians from all over the country regarding the war in Ukraine and the concerns of many Romanians regarding what is happening with iodine pills, stating that their distribution is a preventive measure.
The Minister of Health says that Romanians' worries about the war in Ukraine are well-founded, but also that taking iodine pills from pharmacies does not indicate the imminence of a nuclear accident, but is only a preventive public health measure and nothing more.
"We do nothing but offer people a minimal remedy for a situation that may occur, it does not mean that it is possible to occur, we did not say that it is likely to occur, and this must be brought to the attention of the public, and the health professionals must respond to the interest of protecting public health.
This is a very simple matter that has, unfortunately, been politicized. For those who politicized it excessively, I don't want to make nominations, I think it's a problem, because if we have this vocation, that we promise public health measures, that we will really have problems, we won't be able to we manage them.
I don't think it has anything to do with me, with the party I come from, it has to do with responsibility towards the population of this country. It was obviously a speculation, it is not the first of its kind. We also tried another system of distributing iodine tablets at the beginning of this conflict in Ukraine, to be done directly by family doctors without prescribing a prescription, but the doctors categorically refused.
Then, taking into account the right that every patient in Romania has to receive a prescription from the family doctor, on whose list he is registered, and this medicine is one that is issued on the basis of prescription from the family doctor, we adopted the necessary legislation so that family doctors can issue prescriptions, and a whole series of pharmacies, over 2.500, are ready to make these pills available to people free of charge.
It is a free public service that these pharmacies have undertaken. As I said, we started the information campaign 3 months ago, the distribution campaign a month and a half ago, and the concern caused by the evolution of the conflict in Ukraine is certainly a legitimate concern of the population, this being only a preventive measure .”
