Speaking on Thursday in Ploiesti about reporting hospital-acquired infections, Secretary of State with the Health Ministry, Dr. Alexandru Rogobete, said that the reporting rate has increased significantly in the last two years from 0.1% to 3.2%, and voiced his conviction that in two or three years it will probably reach the EU average.

„Let me tell you where we started from, where we are now and what has changed in the meantime. In January 2022, when I took office, the nationwide reporting rate was 0.1%. This is the reality. Today, as we speak, it is 3.2%. The average across the European Union is 6%. However, in 2 years we advanced from 0.1% to 3.2% and are on a steady upward trend,” the official told a press conference.

Explaining what made this increase in reporting possible, he mentioned several factors that include „massive investments in labs and not only, in order to increase the capacity of microbiological testing and verification,” and the change in 2022 of the criteria for the assessment of hospital managers’ performance, with the reporting rate of hospital-acquired infections added to the set of criteria. „Basically, (…) once a year, when the manager is assessed, the hospital-acquired infections reporting rate is a major indicator, and a more correct reporting was thus encouraged. On the other hand, all the NRRP projects were conditioned by the reporting rate of such infections, that is, when a hospital applied to a project, it got a higher score if it could prove an increased reporting rate for hospital-acquired infections. These measures have led to a significant increase, I’d say, from 0.1% to 3.2%, and I think in 2 or 3 years we will probably reach the EU average,” declared Alexandru Rogobete.

AGERPRES