Minister of Health, Alexandru Rogobete, announced that a national thematic inspection will be triggered to detect doctors who do not respect their schedule in public hospitals.
The official warns that the extreme sanction will be the termination of the employment contract.
Rogobete admitted that the phenomenon of doctors working both in the public and private sectors, without respecting the schedule in public hospitals, is real and affects the system. "I don't have monitoring. This phenomenon is true. I don't want to generalize, not all doctors in the system do this, but indeed, this phenomenon that we know exists," the minister said on TVR Info.
"Doctors are not running through hospitals"
The minister specified that, in collaboration with the National Health Insurance House, indicators from the IT platform will be analyzed to correlate data with actual hospital activity.
Rogobete also gave an example: "We identified even a university colleague, with an important title, who, last year, in a public hospital performed only five interventions. A thematic inspection on this subject will follow."
The minister reiterated that the lack of respect for the work schedule will lead to the extreme measure of terminating the employment contract.
"Those who do not respect the work schedule in public hospitals will end up with the termination of the employment contract. Unfortunately, I don't want to be misunderstood, doctors are not running through hospitals. But if we don't stop this phenomenon that has brought us to this difficult point, we will never get better," Rogobete added.
He emphasized his opposition to the idea of forcing doctors to choose between the public and private systems. "I will never agree that a doctor has to choose between public or private. I believe that doctors can have medical activity according to the schedule at the public hospital. But, for this, I ask for the work schedule to be respected."
"I feel quite embarrassed that in 2025 I have to ask doctors to respect their schedule in public hospitals," he added.
Cause: loss of legislative control
In the minister's opinion, the current situation is caused by a lack of control over healthcare legislation.
"It's a management issue, but also a systemic one. For years, legislative control over the system has been lost. Everyone does what they want, how they want, when they want, and if they don't do it, nothing happens. There are many loopholes in legislation that are excessively used," Rogobete concluded.