Study affirms that population of Moldova unofficially paid MDL 153 mln to doctors in one year

The employees of the medical institutions from Moldova unofficially received MDL 153 mln in a period of only 12 months, a significant part of them being given as bribe, an opinion poll recently organized by Transparency International Moldova (TI) in 1375 households found. The error rate of the poll constitutes 2.7%, according to its authors. TI expert, Iana Spinei declared at a press conference that the aim of the opinion poll was to study the situation related to the access of population to medical services, analysis of viewpoints and experience regarding corruption in the health protection system, identifying the areas most affected by corruption and presenting proposals on improving the situation. The opinion poll showed that one of the main obstacles in the access to public medical service is the necessity of offering bribe. The highest bribes are paid in the state hospital and clinics, namely 42 and 39% of the total amount of payments. The doctors who are most frequently bribed are surgeons, family doctors, gynecologists and obstetricians. At the same time, the study ascertains a high level of availability of bribing employees working in health protection institutions. Over 34% of the questioned persons declared that they are decided to bribe the doctors and 51% will study the situation and afterwards will decide upon giving or not bribes. According to the respondents, among the obstacles occurring when appealing to the medical institutions is the high number of persons waiting for consultations and the exaggerated prices. At the same time, they consider that the health protection system is affected not only by bribery, but also nepotism, drugs’ theft and subsequent sell, imposing repeated consultations, theft or incorrect distributing of humanitarian aids, as well as their sell in drug stores, prescribing useful drugs for increasing drug stores’ incomes. Referring to compulsory medical insurances, 35% of the respondents who do not have them explain this by the high cost and their inefficiency. A similar percentage of persons say that they agree to pay a high price for the medical insurance only for having the possibility to choose the medical institution, the doctor, medical services and the possibility to accumulate the financial resources which were not used by the payer. The executive director of TI, Lilia Carasiuc declared at the same conference that she pleads for the flexibility of medical insurances mechanism, for the freedom of patient’s choice when opting for an institution or doctor. “Only in this case the best doctors will be promoted and they will have decent wages that will determine them not to abandon their job in order to survive. Those who are weak, who have no authority or sufficient knowledge to properly treat patients either will learn to do it, or will abandon this responsible job”, the cited source considers. The Global Corruption Report 2006 launched by Transparency International proves that there are many frauds and corruption cases in the medical system – starting thefts, abuses and massive embezzlements.