ROMANIAN HEALTH SECTOR PLANS

Romania's Minister of Health, Mircea Aiorescu, has announced in Bucharest that his Ministry is planning to change various aspects of the national health system.

Emphasis will be placed on preventative care instead of hospital treatment, the Minister told the press, with the result that hospital bed numbers will fall, and those remaining will be placed more at the disposal of the chronically and acutely sick, reports the Rompres news agency. The Minister added that: the supply of medicines should be decentralized; management courses organized for heads of hospitals; certain medical "specialties" should be privatized; principles of the market economy introduced, such as shareholding, contracting, price ceilings and competition; and improved quality nursing developed.

According to the Minister, Romania appealed in February for medicines worth 17.1 million Ecus under the PHARE program of assistance to the former socialist countries of eastern Europe, and a large proportion of this aid was due to be received by the end of March.