Mandatory Health Insurance proves its efficiency, authorities say

The results registered in about 4 years of implementing the Mandatory Health Insurance System (MHIS) have confirmed the appropriateness of the decision to adopt insurances in medicine, considers Minister of Health Ion Ababii and the director of the National Committee for Health Insurance (NCHI), Gheorghe Rusu. They stated during a meeting at the Presidency that since the inception of MHIS, the budget devoted to the public health system advanced 2.3 times, and as a result the income and expenditure of the medical establishments grew in the same proportion. The financial sustainability of the healthcare system enabled the medical establishments to have a more solid ground and plan better the volume of services rendered. Expenditures for purchases of drugs and provisions rose from 2003 by about 3.7 times and 2.2 times, respectively. According to official reports, since the start of MHIS, the salaries of the medical workers rose about 2.8 times, in contrast to the 2.1-fold hike in the average monthly salary. At the same time, although there has been registered an upward trend in what concerns payments for the medical workers, the level of their wages in real terms is still relatively low. Among the problems of the healthcare system the officials named the shortage of medical personnel, in particular in rural areas; unsatisfactory managerial capacities; old medical equipment and technologies; old buildings which require restoration, etc. Ion Ababii also specified that at present the Ministry of Health is working on a strategy to develop the hospital sector both in Chisinau and across the country, which would re-classify the hospitals and redistribute hospital care.