C.C Iliescu Institute of Cardiology is running out of money

The most important hospital specialised in heart disease in Bucharest which responds to the majority of emergencies in the country is in danger of being closed.

The C.C Iliescu Institute of Cardiology no longer has funds for salaries or medicine.

Due to the critical situation of many sanitary units in the country, including the C.C Iliescu Institute, the Ministry of Health has decided to supplement the incoming amount of money for the national health programmes, but only for buying the necessary equipment, while the rest of the money goes to the Health Insurance Fund.

According to Associate Professor Şerban Bubenek, the manager of the C.C Iliescu Institute of Heart Disease, such a situation has arisen because the contract between National Health Insurance Fund and Bucharest Health Insurance Fund does not include any provision regarding the sums of money for November and December allocated for buying medicine, sanitary materials, disposables, reagents and sanitary articles.

“We find ourselves in November not being able to pay for any type of sanitary materials, frequently used medicine or reagents. We cannot pay the utility bills, which has never happened before and should never happen”, Şerban Bubenek said.

“The only legal solution that can clear this issue now is the supplementation of National Health budget, which allocates this money to territorial county houses; we are worried because we are the first affected, and the distance between life and death when you have a heart disease is not months, weeks or days, but sometimes less than an hour", Şerban Bubenek declared.

President of National Health Insurance Fund Lucian Duţă declared for the news agency that they would transfer an amount of approximately 150-160 million lei from December to November, in order to end the financial problems of hospitals.

“Of course, I believe that I have helped the president, and I trust this decision to be a correct one, taken in an emergency case, but I hope that in December we will benefit from a fair financing as well”, Lucian Duţă declared.

The President of National Health Insurance Fund also declared for the news agencies that “ I can foresee some financial problems for December also”, but he will try to sort them out in the next week meeting with Ministry of Public Finance.


Translated by: Angelica Ţapoca
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University