HealthMin Pintea: Pay to public healthcare staff, decent; no more need for additional income

Minister of Health Sorina Pintea said on Friday that the pay to the public healthcare staff reached a decent level and that "there is no more need for patients rounding up their income," and the initiative to dispatch undercover patients to public hospitals is not "witch hunt,' but an action designed to enforce the law. "I have said it very clearly: this is not witch hunting, we do not terrorise anyone; we just want the law to be observed. We are the public healthcare system in which the Romanian government invests: last year - in pay rises, this year in medical equipment. I do not think we can talk about the direct or indirect conditioning of healthcare provision (...) I hope to change mentalities. Pay to the healthcare staff has reached a decent level so there is no more need for patients to supplement their income," Pintea said in Bistrita-Nasaud. She mentioned having talked with the medical staff before making the decision to send "undercover patients" to hospitals, adding that she did not feel any hostility from the doctors she consulted with. "In fact, we did not feel hostility in 90 percent of the doctors with whom we talked about that. You can rest assured that when the health minister makes a decision adjusted for the anti-corruption strategy, he or she does not do that without first discussing it with the medical staff. So we did have such talks," said Pintea. AGERPRES (RO - author: Oana Malina Negrea, editor: Florin Marin; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)