National Health Card rejected by Senate

The Senate rejected an emergency ordinance regulating the introduction of the National Health Card.

Family physicians believed that this was the result of the meetings between the lawmakers in which they urged them not to accept the law that would impose "additional bureaucratic work".

Doctors hope that neither the Chamber of Deputies, the deciding power in this case, give enough votes.

The National Health Card was also challenged in court, as it was one of the reasons for which the family physicians' organizations have sued the Ministry of Health and National Health Insurance House.

The president of the Family Physicians Federation, Doina Mihailă, said that the percentage of doctors intending not to sign new framework agreement in order to settle the health care services offered to their patients, has reached 81 percent.

The doctor stated that most colleagues are outraged because of the statements of the president of the National Health Insurance House, who has said last week that family physicians had been the ones pushing the framework contract and disputing with the National Health Insurance House, because "they want more money and no rules in the system."

"We’ve had enough of the insults and slanders and we do not dismantle each of the president’s statement. We give him the opportunity to publicly apologize, if not, we will sue and claim moral damages for what he said, because he has to bring evidence to support his statements", Doina Mihailă said.

New doctors’ contracts "postponed by a month "

Family doctors said they do not want to become some clerks and not have time to be ion charge of the patients. In contrast, they argued that they would not reject a contract regulating their relationship with the authorities and they even offered their own solutions to avoid any blockage in the primary health care.

The president of the National Society of Family Physicians, Dr. Rodica Tănăsescu said that it would be appropriate that the period of the entering into force of the new contracts to be postponed for a month.

"This month, let’s adjust all the legislation related to the framework contract and the functioning of health care offices so as to make it reasonable and to sign it on 1 May. That is, from our point of view, a compromise solution. It’s not our fault that until the end of March they have barely thought that maybe things went wrong", Rodica Tănăsescu said.

The doctors continued to oppose to the process of the computerization as they have already indicated deficiencies in the system and they feared that would be held responsible for any problems later arising.

The Ministry of Health and the National Health Insurance House intend to introduce since 2012 the electronic medical prescription and since 2013 the electronic medical file.

Translated by: Iulia Florescu,
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University