The Minister of Health speaks to all Romanians in the country about the very important problems that millions of people are currently facing, and this is because he brings to attention the problem of the lack of medical staff in various regions of the country, characterizing it as a regional problem , which affects many regions.
The Minister of Health also explains below what he discussed with the unions in the health system, who are threatening to organize a general strike, but Alexandru Rafila says that there are solutions to solve the difficulties that a lot of staff are currently facing, unfortunately.
"We do not necessarily have a shortage of doctors in Romania at the present time, because the number of doctors in Romania is close to the average of the European Union. We have a shortage of regional doctors. It is an uneven distribution. In Bucharest we have eight doctors per thousand inhabitants, at the national level we have three, but we also have areas where we have 1,7.
So it is clear that human resources policy, together with local authorities and universities of medicine and pharmacy, is the answer. We can create a framework so that there is attractiveness, a balancing of the specialties that are in short supply, and there we can certainly create more places for residency. Fortunately, we have a strategy at the moment, we are working with WHO experts. This is a problem that affects all countries in the WHO European region and we are looking for answers together.
The idea is that we have to retain the medical personnel who are already working, attract other medical personnel and think about what we offer these people, not only money, but also where they live, their professional comfort. We can improve equipment, consumables and so on, to have professional comfort to investigate and treat their patients. Through PNRR we solve many of these things.
It is normal to have such claims. I have met with all the unions, the representative ones in the health field, I know their demands very well. Some are older. The thing we discussed and established, and I hope we can keep our word to each other, is the following. There are three categories of claims.
First of all, it's about their request to unlock positions in Health. You know that there was an emergency ordinance that blocked employment in the entire public sector, and we are about to achieve this. I made a request through the public health departments related to the needs of the various health units."
