Rogobete criticises the Health reform: "Cutting isn't reform"

Former Health Minister Alexandru Rogobete has criticised the way expenditure is being cut within the healthcare system, arguing that simply slashing funds cannot be called reform. He warns that insufficient funding for medicines, medical supplies, and certain healthcare services does not eliminate real costs — it merely converts them into deferred invoices, debts, and shortages felt directly in hospitals.

"You have confused reform with cuts"

According to Rogobete, the sums currently allocated do not cover what hospitals and the wider healthcare system actually require. He argues that reducing funding does not solve problems — it only postpones them.

"I am addressing the reformers now, who have confused reform with cutting. In healthcare, the problem is concrete: funding for medicines, medical supplies, and certain healthcare services does not cover the requirements reported by hospitals and the system," the former minister stated.

He explains that the gap between actual needs and the funds effectively allocated does not simply vanish — it accumulates within the system: "When you allocate less than what a medical service requires, the difference does not disappear. It turns into deferred invoices, debts, shortages, or the need for additional allocations."

A direct message to Ilie Bolojan

Rogobete addressed Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan directly, challenging the notion that reducing expenditure constitutes, in itself, a reform of the healthcare system: "Mr Bolojan, is this the reform you have been telling Romanians about day after day?"

In the former minister's view, rather than outright cuts, the focus should be on stimulating the economy and encouraging public and private investment, developing public-private partnerships, reducing tax evasion, and improving revenue collection for the budget. He also highlighted the need to improve the efficiency of state-owned companies, which should be required to demonstrate "measurable economic performance".

A call for predictable funding

Among the measures proposed by Rogobete are continued investment in infrastructure, reducing bureaucracy through the digitalisation of public services, and ensuring predictable funding for critical sectors, including Healthcare, "based on actual needs and consumption."

"That is what reform means: correcting what does not work and building mechanisms that deliver results," Rogobete emphasised, adding: "Cutting an expenditure is a budgetary decision. It is not, in itself, a reform."