Quality of services offered, along with civilized conditions and cleanliness, medical staff’s attitude are among the main qualities of the private healthcare system mentioned by respondents in a survey.
According to a communiqué remitted to ‘Nine O’Clock, ‘ the most recent IMAS survey ordered by MedLife shows that 20 per cent of Romanians living in urban areas use the private health system.
Over 70 per cent of them choose the private health system because of the quality of services offered. The other arguments in favour of their choice are: civilized conditions and cleanliness in private clinics (45.7 per cent), the medical staff’s attitude (43.1 per cent), the time it takes to receive medical care (39.2 per cent), the private clinics’ high-performance technology (34.2 per cent), the medical staff’s professionalism (30.1 per cent), and the absence of informal payments (29.3 per cent).
The survey was conducted at national level on a sample of 1,000 persons on April 8-19, 2011. According to the same survey, 61 per cent of respondents undergo medical check-ups one or several times per year, 19 per cent once every 2-3 years and 10 per cent once every 5 years or more.
According to the survey, the best-known private hospital in Romania is the Life Memorial Hospital, followed by the Queen Mary Maternity, the Euroclinic Hospital, the Pelican Hospital in Oradea and the Arcadia Hospital in Iasi.
The same survey reflects the frequency of visits to the doctor. Thus, compared to 2010, the percentage of Romanians that visit the doctor once a year has remained relatively constant, going from 20 per cent last year to 22.6 per cent this year. On the other hand, the percentage of Romanians that do not visit the doctor at all dropped significantly, from 13 per cent in 2010 to 3 per cent in 2011. The percentage of Romanians that visit the doctor several times per year has risen by approximately 15 per cent compared to 2010.
