18:06    |    06/08/2011

Investments vs. health system

 E-mail Print PDF 

As you have been informed, the health minister has resigned. That’s a real event in Romanian politics. Resignations are so seldom that I can hardly remember one.

It’s interesting that Mr. Cseke Attila justified his decision with the fact that he had never been consulted by the finance minister regarding the budget rectification and that the amounts he requested had never been under scrutiny. Well, Gheorghe Ialomitianu, the finance minister replied by saying the health minister had been consulted. He said Ceske was present during the talks focusing on budgetary rectification.

Here arrives a question valid all over the world: are investments more important than keeping the health system working properly? It’s true; the Romanian health system is inefficient, it’s wasting money on expensive medicine and other issues. On the other hand, one has to take into consideration that sick people, especially the ones suffering from deadly diseases, need help. Leaving them without support is like sentencing them to death. In front on such a sentence I shiver comparing to investments from which only a few have profit.

Looking at this issue is difficult. One may say that without investments an economy already in distress has no chance of surviving. But, on the other hand, what point is in a surviving economy when people are not surviving?!

Think about it. After all, it’s part of our system, wherever we are. Anyway, hail the (former) health minister. He may not have done much, but at least he pulled the alarm bell.

 

Maxy