Minister of Health Alexandru Rafila on Tuesday said it would be wise to return to the system of assigning resident doctors to posts, which would help ensure that doctors reach all communities.

„I believe a wise move would be to return to a form of organisation – currently largely the responsibility of medical and pharmacy universities – where resident doctors are assigned to a post becomes the majority and a priority. After all, we don’t train doctors just for the sake of it, but to serve communities. This approach to developing residency by post is the right way to bring doctors into all communities, along with the efforts local authorities must certainly make. These young doctors, in turn, will attract other resources into the local healthcare system,” said Rafila.

The Ministry of Health, with support from the World Health Organization, launched on Tuesday the Local Action Guide: Solutions for Human Resources in Health, developed under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).

According to the minister, the main issue is not the number of doctors, but rather their distribution across the country.

„While in terms of total number of doctors we are not doing too badly at the European level, in terms of distribution, there is definitely room for improvement – and not just improvement, but real change. We need mechanisms to attract and retain medical personnel, especially doctors. We’re facing a problem with family doctors – most of them are over 50, even over 55 years old, in about 40% of cases,” Alexandru Rafila explained.

In his view, attracting medical personnel to disadvantaged areas could be achieved through strong cooperation between local authorities and medical universities and faculties.

AGERPRES