The Minister of Health made an extremely serious statement for millions of Romanians, and this is because he is talking about a serious problem of national importance which, unfortunately, affects a very large number of people in hospitals during this period, and this is because of the problems with the supply of medicines.
The Minister of Health speaks below about the reasons why the supply of medicines is not carried out in the conditions it should be at the moment for all hospitals in Romania, but also about what should be done in order for the situation to return to normal in the whole country.
"If we are talking about the expenses related to utilities, this is a matter that is not in the power of the ministry I lead, but the compensation of energy bills for units of public interest, such as hospitals, or other medical facilities, because we are not referring to only in hospitals, will solve this problem.
The problem of discontinuity in the supply of medicines is a complex problem related to the way in which the price of these medicines is made up. It's about clawback, it's about the interest of a manufacturer, or a distributor, to bring to the market a medicine that has a very low price, and we will present an integrated approach.
We have already generated a working group that deals with this, and to collect all the aspects, because a punctual solution to a problem does not mean that it solves the problem as a whole. It is important to have, if you want, the medicines on the market at the lowest price that makes possible the presence of the medicine on the market, not necessarily the lowest price that leads to its disappearance from the market.
It's a philosophy that we have to understand, especially given that the costs borne by drug manufacturers, and I'm not necessarily referring to those of original drugs, but to those of generic drugs, and in Romania we only have this type. With the increased costs of energy and raw materials, obviously, there will be an impact on the cost of medicines.
Our interest, we have two types of interests, one related to the presence of medicines, to be available to patients, especially the so-called essential medicines. On the other hand, we want these drug factories to continue their important activity in Romania, because they contribute to more than 1% of GDP, which is not to be neglected."
