A Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Cristian Bușoi said that the countries in Central and Eastern Europe, especially Romania invest a small sum in Health compared to the European average as member states understand that this domain should be an absolute priority, according to Agerpres.
„There is still an unequal access to healthcare services throughout the European Union as well as within member-states. (…) There is still a very inadequate system of primary medical assistance in some European countries as 80% of the costs of medical assistance are still related to chronic diseases and readmissions, services are fragmented and the disease prevention costs are on average 3% of the total expenses of health budgets,” said Busoi at an online conference „Romanian Health System, Problems, Performance and Perspectives,” organized by the Academy of Medical Sciences.
„The differences are very high, with the northern and western European countries investing a more significant amount compared to countries in the South, Central and Eastern part of Europe that have shown very low investments,” added Busoi.
The MEP said that the public fund expenses for healthcare in central and eastern Europe were lower than 7% of the GDP countries, while in Romania the average was 4% – 4.3%.
Cristian Busoi stated that according to the polls conducted by the European Commission, the OECD and the WHO, 70% of European citizens wish that the EU did more for health, and hopes for member-states to invest more in this domain.