Owing to the shortage of funds, tens of hospitals in the country risk being unable to accept patients towards the end of the year, while the health facility managers complain that they face problems in paying for public utilities and in purchasing medicines. The Ministry of Finance said the debt to hospitals amounts to almost half a billion lei and there are no budget resources. In an interview for Radio Free Europe, Ala Nemerenco, Doctor of Medicine, university lecturer and expert in health policies, said the assertions that the health facilities have so large debts for the first time are true, IPN reports.

“As the director of a health facility and knowing how things stand inside the sector, I can confirm that the hospitals have so large debts for the first time. The Ministry of Finance has debts of about half a billion lei to the National Health Insurance Company. For its part, the Company is unable to pay this money to hospitals, as the contracts signed between them provide. A sum of 440 million lei is owed. The health facilities have debts of over 600 million lei to those that provide services to them,” said the expert.

According to Ala Nemerenco, the deficit derives from the debts that the Ministry of Finance has to the National Health Insurance Company. The cash transfers from the state budget for medically insuring the categories of persons insured by the Government – children, students, pensioners, persons with disabilities, pregnant women and others – represent almost half of the amounts collected into the mandatory health insurance funds.

The deficit also comes from the debts accumulated by the health facilities to economic entities from which they purchase medicines, consumables, water, heat and food. Another cause for the deficit is the inefficient planning and management of public resources by the National Health Insurance Company during the last few years.

Ala Nemerenco considers that in such a situation the Ministry of Health was obliged to immediately work out an anti-crisis plan of action that would have prevented the worsening of the situation of health facilities. “I refer to such major divisions as emergency, reanimatology, acute surgery, children’s and maternity wards. The purchases of equipment that is not vital should have been stopped and a rule concerning the buying of drugs, consumables, etc. should have been instituted,” said the expert, adding that it’s yet possible to stop the further worsening.