The health system in Romania does not have a good perception abroad, it is even "disappointing", experts in the field say. For healthcare and medicine, Romania allocates the least money, both per capita and as a percentage of GDP
Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that we are lagging behind in the EU regarding access to pharmaceutical news.
"If we take an objective look at the health indicators, the picture is quite disappointing. One reason is that, for health care and medicine, Romania allocates the least money, both per capita and as a percentage of GDP," Gabor Sztaniszlav said, President of the Local American Working Group on Saturday exclusively on the Income Magazine show from Antena 3.
"People need to know that for the last five years the budget allocated for subsidized drugs remained unchanged. This means that although consumption increased by over 25% every year the amount spent on drugs remained the same. A very important aspect is that of access to innovations in pharmaceutics, unfortunately Romania is on the last place in the European Union in this chapter.
The list of subsidized drugs has not been really updated even though there appeared several new drugs for rare diseases. These drugs have saved lives, but it should be understood that they were intended for a very small percentage of the population.
If we talk about drugs for the diseases with the highest rate, the cardio-vascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, we must say that this chapter has not undergone any update in recent years. These are, however, the precise areas where there has been a lot of innovation and which have undergone the greatest development for the past 5-8 years, "added Gabor Sztaniszlav.
"It seems that the Romanian state wants a kind of all-inclusive system. By paying a fixed amount for the subsidized products, it wants to buy unlimited. Not only that it's not sustainable, but it will not allow any new drugs to reach the market more efficiently. And the clawback tax will only contribute to the inability to fund "concluded Gabor Sztaniszlav, President of the Local American Working Group.