In case of a public health emergency, the system is obliged to be ready so as to prevent, diminish and ensure an efficient response and alleviate the consequences. The treatment for COVID-19 does not stop at the negative test and continues with the liquidation of consequences. For the 235,000 people who contracted COVID-19, the disease didn’t pass without effects on their health, said disaster medicine specialist Mihail Pîslă, lecturer of the School of Public Health Management. “In the nearest future, we will face another problem: rehabilitation of the state of health of the infected persons. For the system to be prepared, a series of measures should be taken (management, training and response to public health emergency). It is not something unordinary. The dangers should be just realized and political will is needed to ensure the implementation of these measures to prevent a serious impact on the population’s health,” Mihail Pîslă stated in a public debate at IPN.
Mihail Pîslă noted there are three levels of reserves: mobilization reserves, departmental reserves and institutional reserves. Each of these should be reregulated, maintained and renewed. These tasks at the medical institutions are carried out by the manager, while the Ministry of Health does not have an own reserve that it could use as it wants. A nomenclature is needed to concentrate the reserves where they are needed the most.
Before the reform of 2015, each district had a public health center managed by a person who had the status of chief sanitary doctor of that district, which enabled the person to take prevention measures, to strengthen public health. That person was the main coordinator in the measures taken to respond to public health emergencies.
As a result of the reform, in 24 districts the public health representative with those powers disappeared. The post of chief state sanitary doctor was liquidated and the local public administration remained without those persons who would have generated ideas, proposals, measures and would have assessed the risks. This problem should be now solved. If there is a district head, a district council, there should be also a public health representative with all the relevant powers, rights and obligations, stated Mihail Pîslă
The public debate “Look into the future after a year of pandemic” is the 180th installment of IPN’s project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
