Romania’s new policy eliminating pay for the first day of sick leave went into effect today, sparking immediate discontent among workers. Health Minister Adrian Vegheșan acknowledged the concerns and announced plans to address potential inequalities resulting from the change, stating he’s had productive discussions with patient associations and is working to revise illness codes currently used for medical leave. The Ministry intends to publish draft implementing regulations for public consultation this week.
Doctor’s visit / Source: motortion | Dreamstime.com
Romania’s Minister of Health, Alexandru Rogobete, has announced upcoming changes to illness codes following a recent decision regarding the payment of sick leave. He stated that regulations are currently being drafted and will soon be made available for public review.
“I said from the beginning that this is a temporary measure, which can be stopped at any time. Moreover, it will be nuanced,” Rogobete said Sunday evening on Antena 3, regarding the discontent surrounding the government’s decision to eliminate pay for the first day of sick leave, which went into effect today, according to News.ro. “I had a practical and productive meeting last week with representative patient associations, and there will be a series of changes to reduce inequalities as much as possible.”
The Minister of Health indicated that “work is underway to rethink the illness codes.”
“For example, code 01 means common illness, but imagine that this code 01 for common illness also includes rare diseases, which are not actually common illnesses. So, we agreed with the team at the Ministry of Health, as well as with suggestions from patient associations, to rethink and reclassify the illness codes. It won’t be a long process, as we are talking about 14 or 16 illness codes here. Once the illness codes are reconsidered and restored, exceptions can certainly be made for the new codes and the classification of pathologies,” Rogobete explained.
“And an idea that I came up with and the patient associations agreed with is that for repeated sick leave, for the same illness code, let me give you an example, for an oncology patient who needs radiotherapy, it is obvious that they need that sick leave every few days or weeks for radiotherapy. There is no doubt about that. It’s just an example, of course, it can be applied to many other pathologies, and the implementing regulations will be built on this principle. They are already being built to some extent, and we will put them out for public consultation this week, to reduce inequalities as much as possible,” the Minister of Health elaborated. This move comes as healthcare policy continues to be a key topic of discussion in Romania.
