The Minister of Health is asking for a series of very important new measures for Romania right now, the official of the Romanian Government talking about the fact that there is a need at the moment to legislate the gestures of gratitude received by doctors from patients, in relation to a conditioning of the act medical by them.
The Minister of Health explains below why a very clear legislation is needed for the way in which people show their gratitude to doctors when they are treated, without the medical act having been conditioned in advance, as is the case with tips in restaurants, even if we are talking about completely different things.
"The patient's gratitude must be discussed publicly, and I think an education campaign is needed, including for the population, an education campaign is needed, to make them understand that this gratitude is not needed, that the greatest gratitude for the doctor is the fact that your patient he got well, and that he is satisfied with the medical services he received.
The doctors should be satisfied with that... a campaign for the population and a campaign for the medical staff would be needed. I don't want to come up with any kind of comparisons with other fields of activity, speaking of how to legislate such a situation, but it is likely that something like this can be reached at a certain moment.
I don't want to make comparisons, a medical act is very different from restaurant service, and it's dangerous to come up with such comparisons, but surely a thank you that translates into a flower, or a bouquet of flowers, or a box with chocolate, I don't think it can constitute... we don't have to fall into the other extreme for things that are, in the end... and if I go to visit an acquaintance, I bring her a bouquet of flowers.
This does not mean that they give undue benefits, so we must find and have the courage to discuss this publicly, it is right to do so, and perhaps to regulate it, so that there is no longer this unjustified criminalization for situations that they are absolutely natural, as we were discussing, for these things.
The other part that I discussed, related to the request for materials or money, for a medical act, is intolerable, it constitutes a criminal act, and I don't think it should be accepted by anyone, neither by patients, nor by medical personnel from Romania."
