ROMANIA purges hospital directors
The new left-wing Romanian government has shown its colours by replacing around a quarter of the country’s 100 hospital directors with new political appointments.
Olteanu Mircea, President of the Romanian Hospital Association, says that, from January 2010, the management of hospitals will be completely decentralised.
He does not think this bodes well.
Our Analysis: Healthcare reform has never really got off the ground in Romania.
Indeed, many Romanians will tell you that public sector hospitals have not been reformed since 1989.
A few years ago, the WHO suggested measures to commercialise public hospitals and to run them as businesses, with managed financial budgets. This was turned down.
It now looks as though the new government is more interested in "politicisation" than "commercialisation".