One third of those who died in hospitals could have lived if an efficient system of hospital services had been ensured, considers the director of the Emergency Medicine Institute Mihail Ciocan. In a meeting at the Ministry of Health, where the draft hospital reform was presented, Mihail Ciocan said a reform is more than necessary. In the absence of modern equipment, the medical institutions cannot cope, IPN reports.

Minister of Health Ruxanda Glavan said the capacity of hospitals now does not meet the expectations and requirements of patients and the situation cannot be changed without a profound reform. “Today we have 71 public institutions that provide hospital services and it was established that the excessive number of beds generates irrational costs. This year over 3 billion lei of the 6 billion lei allocated to the health system have been used to finance the hospital sector,” stated the minister.

Ruxanda Glavan underlined that the advantages of the reform will include the concentration and efficient use of the available human resources and the investments needed in 11 regional hospitals, which will have capacity to provide high-quality services to about 300,000 patients. The money that will be received as financing from the National Health Insurance Company will be used for patients, not for maintaining and renovating the used areas.

The discussed draft reform envisions the creation of four central hospitals, 11 specialized regional hospitals and a universal hospital. There will be a total of 19 medical institutions in the country.

Among the problems faced by the national hospitals, Deputy Minister of Health Oleg Creciun mentioned the old equipment, very low bed occupancy rate at large district hospitals, unused large areas in hospitals at a time when the chronic diseases wards are crowded and the unsatisfactory conditions in hospitals.

Following the reform, the patients with emergencies will go to regional hospitals, while those with chronic diseases will be admitted to local hospitals. The main rule in the placement of the new medical institutions is that the road to a patient with an emergency should not take more than 60 minutes, which is the golden hour.

A central hospital will be outfitted with all the necessary equipment at a cost of about €80 million.