Actualizare 16 mai: Comisia Europeană a răspuns scrisorii transmise de FNPMF cu privire la PNRR.

Federația Națională a Patronatelor Medicilor de Familie a trimis Comisiei Europene o scrisoare cu privire la Programul Național de Redresare şi Reziliență şi modificările propuse de Guvern.

Nr. 78/30.03.2023

Ursula von der Leyen
President of the European Commission
Rue de la Loi / Wetstraat 200, 1049 Brussels, Belgium

Céline Gauer
Director-General of the Recovery and Resilience Task Force
Rue de la Loi 200 / Wetstraat 200, 1040 Brussels, Belgium

Ref: Concerns over healthcare sector reforms and investments in Romania’s Recovery and Resilience Plan

Dear President von der Leyen, dear Director-General Gauer,

We are writing to express our increased concerns over the proposal sent to the EC by the Government of Romania to amend the components related to the health sector reforms and investments from Romania’s Recovery and Resilience Plan: Component 12 (Healthcare) – Reform 1, Reform 2, Reform 3 and Investment 1; Component 7 (Digital Transformation) – Investment 3.

The reforms and investments to be amended include measures on digitalization of public administration and public services and improvement of healthcare and education sectors, developing an integrated e-Health system, connecting over 25,000 healthcare providers and developing telemedicine systems, as well as capacity building for the management of public health funds, development of investment capacity in health infrastructure, capacity building for health services management and human resources in health management.

The investment we are most concerned about is Investment 1 from Component C12, the development of pre-hospital medical infrastructure, which includes over 3000 primary care centres, 200 community care centers, family planning centers, health prevention services (for cervical cancer, breast cancer), increased access for roma and vulnerable patients. All these investments are already lagging behind other investments in hospitals, although the agreed deadline for primary care centers is June 2023.

As it is well documented for many years in the European Semester documents, the strategic primary health care network of Romania is slowly but steadily disintegrating due to insufficient funding, lack of investment and bad goveranance over the past 24 years. Another reason for this status is the lack of implementation of the various strategies and plans developed by the Government of Romania, which promised to strengthen primary care but failed to deliver on the promise. To name only a few: the Primary Care Development Strategy in Romania 2012-2020, the National Health Strategy for Romania 2014-2020, the Regional Health Plans 2016-2020, the Regional Refferal Networks report 2018. We are very concerned to witness the Recovery and Resilience Plan 2021-2026 follow the same course.

The National Federation of Family Medicine Employers (FNPMF) is the business association representing the interests of family medicine offices and of family doctors as employers since 2009. We have constantly offered our support to the Government of Romania for the succesfull implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan and stressed the importance and urgency of the reforms to strengthen primary care in Romania to the benefit of patients in Romania. We also answered concerns raised by the Romanian Ombudsman in September 2022 over the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan.

FNPMF stands ready to provide further input if it is considered useful.