The Minister of Health has officially announced for the millions of Romanians all over the country what kind of solutions have been adopted at the level of the ministry he leads to solve the serious problem of the need to provide medical care in outpatient centers for children who require medical assistance in following infection with a circulating virus.
The Minister of Health also talks about the alternatives for the medicines that are currently no longer available in pharmacies across the country, and this is because there are quite a few that are unavailable, but for them there are variants that have the same active substance, and that can be administered by to the children's parents.
"We created pediatric evaluation centers depending on how many medical staff we have. We cannot make more medical centers than we have medical personnel, we did the opposite, depending on the availability of hospitals to provide medical personnel for these centers, we established them. You cannot establish centers if there are no medical personnel. Especially since there must be medical personnel to provide pediatric consultations.
I have provided the list, to request a substitute, (ed. asked about the lack of pediatric medicines in pharmacies) if, for example, they cannot find syrup, to request suppositories for children, there are different forms of administration, but it is important to use for those 2 medicines that are, I mean Ibuprofen and Paracetamol, request any of the available options.
It is a correct solution (n. ed. for pharmacies to offer alternatives), but this can also be implemented if the public, the parents, are informed, that's why I published that list. The information is not for doctors or pharmacists, the information is for the public, because, unfortunately, we are prisoners of some information that exists, and we sometimes make confusions, and I make the same confusion.
Sometimes instead of saying Ibuprofen, which is the active substance and found in 10 other products, I say Nurofen. It is a commercial name, any product that contains the indicated amount of Ibuprofen, any product that contains the indicated amount of paracetamol for children, is equally useful. They are generic drugs, there is practically no difference in the availability of the products, if one or the other is administered.
I had a discussion with CNAS, and I want to say that yesterday the Government adopted a decision regarding the extension of the validity of the current framework contract until March 31, and the introduction of a package of services for uninsured people. We had a clear discussion, we made a group to keep in touch with CNAS, and our position is clear, the ministry will not sign a framework contract that brings restrictions to health services."
