The public medical-sanitary intuitions where operations for cataract are performed by implanting crystalline do not have sufficient financial resources. Currently, the waiting lists for such surgery include 4,600 patients. The information was made public in a meeting at the Ministry of Health, IPN reports.

According to a communique of the Ministry, ophthalmologists say the consumables and drugs for performing such operations are very costly. At the same time, the National Health Insurance Company covers only a part of these operations’ costs from the mandatory health insurance funds. Such surgery is now available at a number of medical-sanitary institutions, mostly at the National Clinical Hospital, “Saint Trinity” Clinical Hospital and the Emergency Medicine Institute.

Minister of Health Ruxanda Glavan said that a working group will be set up to deal with this problem. It will reassess the real costs of the services provided and the capacities of the health facilities providing them. Another solution is to identify possibilities of covering the costs by gradually shortening the waiting lists.

About 2,500 operations for cataract were performed in 2015, but the real capacity of the health facilities is 5,800 such operations a year.