A complete lack
of basic medical supplies and trained staff in Romanian hospitals
point to dire problems in the country’s health care system.
Patients are faced with a lack of staff and under-funding. Doctors
demand financial compensation from patients seeking treatment, which
low-paid workers and the unemployed can ill-afford.
“Incompetence,
indifference and irresponsibility together equal crime,” said
Agnes Sekely, a Romanian accountant. “Guilty are the doctors,
the nurses, the guards, the electricians, the lack of funding, in
short the whole system.”
Health care was
provided free of charge by the state after Romania became part of the
socialist bloc following World War II. Annual expenditures for public
health rose considerably, and the number of doctors and hospital beds
available to the population rose concurrently.
Following the victory of the
counterrevolution in 1989, the system has been progressively
privatized, and the quality of health care is in sharp decline.
Romania’s hospitals are now “on the ropes,” according to an
Aug. 23 Associated Press report.
