39% of Romanians surveyed are satisfied with the way the public health system serves them, according to the STADA Health Report 2024 study, which was launched for the first time in Romania on Tuesday.

„Public health systems in Europe are facing growing citizen dissatisfaction with the services provided. For the fourth consecutive year, European citizens’ satisfaction with their countries’ health systems has fallen to around 56%, it shows STADA Health Report 2024 data. Instead, with the decline of Europeans’ trust in public health systems, there is an increased concern for individual measures by which they take care of their health: regular physical exercises, adopting a healthy diet, activities that support well-being mental. In Romania, the degree of satisfaction of citizens remains at the level of 2023 and is even lower than the European average: only 39% of the surveyed Romanians are satisfied with the way the public health system serves them,” the study shows.

Thus, in this regard, Romania ranks 17th out of the 23 countries evaluated.

According to the study, access to medical consultations, the standard of medical services, the shortage of personnel and the general lack of trust in the decision-makers in the health sector are the main reasons, at a general level, for the dissatisfaction with the health systems.

As far as Romania is concerned, in addition to these, the respondents also indicated the lack of access to preventive medical services (37%) among the causes of low trust in the public system.

On the other hand, the study shows, there are also reasons for satisfaction: 53% of the Romanians surveyed stated that they were satisfied with the availability of medical personnel to offer them advice or medical care.

„The main direction of action that should be pursued in the effort to improve the degree of trust in health systems is to ensure that the people who reach decision-making positions have expertise in the field of health. If in total almost 1 in 2 Europeans (48%) considers that it would make a difference if the decision-makers in the health sector had training in this field, in Romania the proportion of those who support this point is even higher, at 62%. Also at the level of our country, another measure indicated by those surveyed refer to expanding the sphere of responsibility of pharmacists, to support doctors,” the study mentions.

Romanians are among the happiest among those surveyed (10/23rd place): 68% say they are „fairly” or „very happy”, compared to 67% of the European average.

Regarding the assessment of mental health, in this chapter Romanians are the most satisfied of all respondents: 85% consider that they have optimal mental health.

Launched for the first time in Romania, the STADA Health Report 2024 analyzes the data of over 46,000 respondents from 23 countries.

AGERPRES