Health Minister Alexandru Rafila said on Thursday that a legislative point of view will be drafted on the relationship of doctors and patients with the public and private health system.

He also announced that another draft law of the Ministry of Health is to rethink the doctors’ and nurses’ workload, especially in first-line hospitals that solve complicated cases in Romania.

„Together with our colleagues, we are thinking of working on a balanced legislative point of view that will respect two principles. One principle is that a doctor can work either in the public or private sector, but this work must be done with respect to the working hours, if he works solely at the public hospital. The second principle is that patients can certainly choose between public and private,” Rafila declared at the end of an event.

He said there is no question of restricting the right of doctors or patients to choose to work or be treated in the public or private sector, „but these things have to happen very clearly – either they are treated in the public sector or they are treated in the private sector”.

„Of course, there are exceptional or outstanding situations that require such a patient course. This course should not be restricted and I want to find a legislative solution that also allows for such a situation in certain cases – where the patient is first treated in the public sector and has to go to the private sector or the opposite situation, where he goes to the private sector from the public sector. I believe that the two sectors, public and private, should not be seen as opposites, they should be seen as complementary, but we must play on equal terms in terms of how services are paid for,” explained the minister of Health.

Rafila argued that in Romania about 20 percent of the total expenditure in the health system is borne by patients.

Another draft law of the Ministry of Health aims to rethink the rules for doctors.

AGERPRES