site.btaRomania Short of Doctors. Why?

Digi24 has an analysis on health workforce shortages in Romania. It identifies three causes of the problem: the poor infrastructure of the system, the uneven distribution of specialists and the emigration of doctors.

The crisis of health specialists has emerged from a report by the Court of Accounts for 2014-2021. In the health care facilities reporting to the Health Ministry alone, there was a shortage of at least 1,000 doctors. There was a shortage of staff in Anаesthesia and Intensive Care, Psychiatry, Cardiology, Radiology, General Surgery, Physical Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Laboratory Medicine, Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology.

The situation has not changed much since 2021, Digi24 says. It cites data of the National Institute of Statistics showing that in 2023 there were 357 doctors per 100,000 population. These figures put Romania behind Bulgaria, Germany, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Cyprus, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden. Romania's official statistics also show there were 72,740 doctors at the end of 2023. Of them, more than 92% were working in urban settings. More than half of the physicians are concentrated in Bucharest and five other counties - Iasi, Mures, Cluj, Timis and Dolj - where there are university centres. 

The shortage of human resources in health care is also due to emigration. "Many health workers emigrate, and shortages in Romania have led to an overburdened workforce and limited the availability of care," according to the European Commission's Country Health Profile 2023.

Statista, a German online platform that specializes in data gathering, said 22,000 doctors who were educated in Romania (37% of all Romanian doctors) worked abroad in 2021, which ranks the country third in the world after India and Pakistan.

A survey conducted in 2023 by the Romanian College of Physicians found that the main reason why doctors of all age groups choose to leave the country is the infrastructure of the Romanian health care system. The study also found that 36% of the country's doctors are at risk of developing burnout syndrome. More than half of doctors aged under 35 are considering leaving the country, according to that source.