Three-quarters of the amount will go into health insurance.
The Health minister warned that the ministry budget needs RON 4 bln at this coming budgetary adjustment, with the National Health Insurance House being the most in need, three-quarters of that amount namely. “Currently, the health budget is RON 4 bln short. To prevent any problems from happening until the end of the year, we will ask for that amount at the budgetary adjustment. The bulk of the financial problems regard the budget of the National Health Insurance House, which will be distributed three-quarters of the overall sum,” Mediafax quoted Health Minister Cseke Attila to have said Wednesday evening. The Health Ministry budget needs an additional RON 960 M, a quarter of the amount to be asked for, of which RON 100 M will be injected into investments, including the purchase of 200 ambulance ambulances, and a helicopter, possibly. The remainder will be channelled into free and compensated medicines included in national health programmes, of which oncology, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, the minister said, who added that oncology and diabetes will be allocated RON 300 M each, and cardiovascular diseases, RON 37 M. According to the minister, oncology program budget rose 264 percent during 2006-2011, while the number of patients only 16 percent, and the diabetes programme budget is up 215 percent and patients number increased 34 percent, with the new measures to therefore only regulate consumption. The Health minister also said that, most likely, the National Health Insurance budget (CNAS) budget issue should not have been up to the ministry, given the House’s autonomous status, which should therefore have taken care of its own problems. “However, in Romania of the past 20 years, the perception was that it is the Health Ministry, and not the CNAS, which shall be held accountable for the lack of insulin or other medicines,” Cseke explained.
“I should like to send a warning signal since, in my view, the situation is a lot more serious than in previous years. (…) I believe the time has come that, along with continued reform measures, there should also be commensurate financial backing for Health. Unless Financial Ministry decision-makers understand that education and health is where the largest investments are needed, I will only be in the position of a fire fighter trying to dose fires with a bucket of water, instead of a water hose,” the minister said, who added that the notion health is but a consumer is wrong.
