Protest Threatens to Leave Many Romanians Without Doctors

Over 4 million Romanian patients will have to pay for primary medical care or register with another doctor in 2018, after 2,500 family doctors said they would not cooperate with the government health insurance company as part of a protest against red tape and a lack of funds.

Family physicians associations protested last week against what they deemed a lack of interest on the part of the government in primary medical care.

Doctors say the government health insurance company, the National Health Insurance House, CNAS, buries them in paperwork and does not reimburse the whole cost of medical care.

Doctors protested on January 3 by refusing to issue compensated prescriptions and announced that consultations would now be pro-bono. Many of them refused to renew their contracts with the government.

They want the government to increase the budget for primary medical care from 5.8 per cent to at least 9 per cent of the total amount assigned to medical care.

The doctors said they have been urging the government for years to change legislation in the field, so that contracts with the insurance company are less rigid and involve less paperwork.

However, the Minister of Health, Florian Bodog, has denounced the protest as irresponsible.

"I apologize to patients and I find it extremely unprofessional to use the suffering and conditions of all these patients in negotiations," Bodog said on Thursday.

The National Health Insurance House on Thursday said 75 per cent of family doctors had signed the contracts already.

However, that leaves another 2,500 doctors, serving 4 million Romanians, unwilling to issue compensated prescriptions.

The health insurance company has found a short-term compromise by issuing a list of 59...