The patients accept that they continue to offer bribe to doctors, while the latter say that the level of corruption in medical institutions is minimum. “What use of having health policy if it does not help. When we go to the family doctor, they usually recommend us medical examinations for payment, saying there are no more free tickets available under the health insurance program. Usually, the doctor puts the money in a safe without issuing a receipt,” said Aliona, a patient of the Family Doctors Center No. 6. Nicoleta, another patient, has told Info-Prim Neo’s reporter that a doctor of the Edinet district policlinic asked 30 lei for a medical certificate. “At the end of 2008, I followed treatment at the municipal hospital “Saint Trinity” in Chisinau. I did not have a health policy and paid for the treatment days in the hospital to the doctor. I wanted to pay into the hospital’s cash desk, but the doctor insisted that I should give him the money and he will pay himself. I paid about 150 lei for a treatment day. The doctor recorded only two treatment days, not the seven days that I had been there,” Veaceslav related. Other patients said that they offer money and presents to doctors in gratitude, not because they ask for them. “I followed treatment at the National Clinical Hospital in Chisinau. I gave the doctor 200 lei to help me. Our family doctor is also benevolent. We offer her boxes of chocolates in gratitude, or sometimes money,” Dumitru said. Nicolae Stavciuc, the director of the municipal children’s hospital “Valentin Ignatenco”, said that the doctors would not take bribe if they were better paid. “If the doctors had a higher salary, there would be no corruption-related problems in the health sector. But the society and the mass media in Moldova criticize the doctors, without trying to understand the essence of the problem,” Nicolae Stavciuc said. He also said that the doctors should be employed according to more rigorous criteria so that they are professionals with human qualities. Ieronim Ciumas, the vice director of the Chisinau Emergency Medical Assistance Section, said he is convinced that the doctors working for the emergency service are the least affected by corruption. “The emergency service was and will be one of the institutions least affected by corruption because the patients in about 80% of the cases are socially-vulnerable persons that cannot offer money,” he said. Ieronim Ciumas also said that in order to combat corruption among doctors, the authorities should improve their working and living conditions, offer them free dwellings. Eduard Boldu, consultant at the Ministry of Health, said that the Ministry is responsible for formulating policies aimed at combating corruption, but every medical institution and patient apart should fight against this phenomenon practically. The head of the Chisinau Health Division Mihai Moldovanu considers that it is hard to fight corruption because the patients usually report cases when they are forced to pay bribe to doctors too late or do not report them at all. Maria Badan, coordinator of the Resource Center for Human Rights (CReDO), which monitored the implementation of the Threshold Country Program in the health sector, said that the steps taken enabled to modify the policies that will reduce in time the corruption risks among doctors. According to a poll carried out by Transparency International, 60.4% of the respondents consider that the phenomenon of corruption in medical institutions is widely spread. Their number has not modified much since the TCP stated to be implemented (68.9%) given the margin of error of 4%. Moldova’s Threshold Country Program commits the Government to undertake specific and needed reforms to control corruption with the help of the Millennium Challenge Corporation and provides material and technical assistance in five distinct areas: Judicial Reform, Civil Society and Media, Reform in the Health Services System, Reform in Tax, Customs, and Police Administration, Reform in the Center for Combating Economic Crime and Corruption. Moldova’s TCP is a $24.7 million initiative implemented during 2007-2008.