Health care in Romania has lower standards than in the rest of the Union. Although everyone in the urban area has access to fast medical assistance, in some rural areas access may be limited. For 2012, the allocated budget spending in the healthcare sector is 12 billion €, or roughly 5% of the GDP. As of February 2011, there were 1.9 medics and 7.4 hospital beds per 1000 people.[1]. The state-owned medical system was the target of decentralization initiated by the President Traian Băsescu in 2006. The Romanian healthcare system is funded by the National Health Care Insurance Fund (CNAS in Romanian). All employers and employees with the age of 18 and older must make monthly contributions. Due to the fairly modest public spending, it is believed that a third of the healthcare spending is out-of-pocket. Furthermore, due to old Communist era habits, some Romanians tend to bribe the doctor with the belief that they'll get better treatment.
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In November 2011, the Government has announced and proposed a completely new healthcare system. The main changes are: the privatization of all hospitals and public clinics, the replacement of the public NHCIS with private insurers and the mandatory contribution to a private healthcare contractor. As president Băsescu declared, "Hospitals must become Plcs or charity institutions, the management must be privatized " Furthermore, the changes also mention the fact that diseases should be treated with local, generic medicine rather than expensive treatments and that doctors will be able to negotiate their salary. The people who are not required to co-pay are teens under the age of 18, people with a monthly income of less than 150€ or people without an income at all. The project is currently put out for public debates and the opinions are mixed.
The most common causes of death are cardiovascular disease and cancer. Communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, syphilis, and viral hepatitis are more common than in Western Europe. A reason for this is the bad habit of some citizens who tend not to use soap on a regular basis. The incidence of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is less than 0.1 percent. However, high rates of venereal disease, lack of education about HIV prevention, and increasing intravenous drug use are factors that could increase the rate substantially in the future. The number of pediatric AIDS cases is one of the highest in Europe because of unsafe blood transfusion and inoculation procedures for young children in hospitals and clinics in the last years of the communist era. In 2006 an estimated 7,200 Romanians below age 20 had been infected in this way.
The first concept of public healthcare appeared in 1700. (in the areas of the Contemporary Romania) This was around the time when foreign doctors were brought in to cure people.
The system has developed and by the mid 18th century, the aristocrats would send their children in Vienna to study medicine and return home with knowledge. In 1859, the University of Iași opened the first medicine department in Romania (known as the Principates at that time).
In the course of the centuries, the healthcare system has improved and it is currently subject to reforms and further improvement. In the European Union, Romania has the 25th (out of 27 member states) healthcare system, outranking Latvia and Bulgaria.
This is a list of the most historically relevant hospitals in Romania.
Colţea Hospital, in Bucharest, was built by Mihai Cantacuzino between 1701 and 1703, composed of many buildings, each with 12 to 30 beds, a church, three chapels, a school, and doctors' and teachers' houses. In 2011, the hospital has been fully re-equipped and is now one of the most modern hospitals in Bucharest.[2]
Pantelimon Hospital was raised in 1733 by Grigore II Ghica. The surface area of the Pantelimon Hospital land property was 400,000 m². The hospital had in its inventory a house for infectious diseases and a house for persons with disabilities. The hospital is still operational today.
St. Spiridon Hospital, in Iaşi, opened in 1755, described in a document from 1757 as the largest in Moldavia and Wallachia, is nowadays the second largest in Romania.[3]
Filantropia Hospital had a capacity of 70 beds and was built in 1806-1812, during the Russian occupation. The hospital is still operational today, but its medical facilities aren't as modern as other hospitals.
In 1830 the Brâncoveanu Hospital was inaugurated. The hospital worked on the same principle as a free clinic, offering various vaccines/medical tests free of charge. However, the urban development led to the hospital building being demolished (and therefore its activity ceased) in the mid 20th Century.
At of 2011, there are ~450 hospitals (according to the Romanian Health Ministry, all the hospitals included in the count have at least one OR and a basic trauma center. Romanian citizens are entitled to free medical assistance, regardless of the surgery type. Citizens of the European Union are entitled to free emergency medical assistance. However, there have been several reported cases in which the patients have been required to provide medical supplies (e.g. tampons).
The Romanian healthcare system has been in existence since 1700. At that time, the doctors were primarily from France, Italy or Austria (in Transylvania). The first Romanian doctors graduated with degrees in medicine from universities in Vienna and Paris at the beginning of the 19th century (such as Ştefan Manega or Ioan Serafim).
The Romanian healthcare system has many unsung heroes. During the 1828 plague in Bucharest, 21 out of 26 doctors died of plague whilst administering treatment for the disease.
In the 20th century, the Communist regime encouraged students to join the medicine university. Doctors were usually given priority housing and had easier access to premium (roasted coffee beans, bananas etc) goods.
Since the fall of the Communist regime, there has been a decline of medical personnel. Many medicine graduates have gone to practice medicine in countries like France, Italy or Finland due to better employment conditions. Another aspect worth mentioning is that Romanian medicine graduates tend to be very well prepared and have a lot of background knowledge, due to the rigorous curriculum and exigency among professors.
Vaccination has been done in Romania ever since the 17th century, when people used rudimentary methods of vaccination, such as dipping newborns into cow milk coming from cows with smallpox.However, due to the increasing number of doctors, more modern methods of vaccination have been introduced. As of 1800, the children were being administered a regular smallpox shot.
From the 19th century up until today, it has became compulsory that all children get vaccinated against Hepatitis B, Tuberculosis, Tetanus, Polio, Rubella and Diphtheria. The vaccines are free of charge and can be done at any authorized pediatrics medic. Additional optional vaccines such as the one against the Flu are also provided free of charge on a bi-yearly basis.
In the past ten years, private medical insurances and private clinics have gotten quite popular, probably due to the agglomeration and shortages in hospitals. Private medical insurances are affordable (€30-60 p.m. on average) and these policies usually grant access to private hospitals. Private hospitals in Romania are more luxurious and more patient-friendly than the regular public hospitals.
Romanian National Partnership in Telemedicine
Romanian Partners for the Pilot are:
Health care systems have improved in Romania since the fall of the Ceauşescu regime in 1989.
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