FACIAS will carry out the project "The Romanian patient - fair laws and maximum transparency" for a period of one year, with the possibility of extending it, which will aim to ensure unrestricted access of patients to the health system, to fair laws, in their service, to their correct and transparent application, and to eliminate abuses in the field.

 

Duration: estimated for 12 months (July 2021 - July 2022)

Target audience:

• Patients aged 18-60 years.
• Patient associations
• State institutions with duties in the field of health

 

Partners: Coalition of Chronic Disease Patient Organisations & Patients' College and other active organisations representing patients in Romania, with whom partnership agreements will be concluded in the immediate future.

Public reporting period: quarterly

OBJECTIVES

Overall objective: at least 20% of approx. all patients will be beneficiaries of the advocacy campaign "The Romanian patient - fair laws and maximum transparency" and of these, 20% will take a stand against abuses and of those who take a stand, 20% will know how to act against abuses.

Specific objectives (six):

• To help increase public knowledge and understanding of Romanian rights and patients.
• Determine the responsible institutions to make enforcement rules for laws concerning patients because, although laws exist, they cannot be enforced due to the lack of these rules, which constitutes, at least, negligence on the part of the institutions that had this legal obligation.
• Get the Romanian state to modernise the health card application so that patients can access the system at any time and see for themselves how much and on what the state has spent money on their health
• Make the State adopt legal rules that lead to the registration of surgical operations in the operating blocks, so that they can then be used, including for the benefit of patients (so that the surgical intervention can be explained to them, also visually, in order to carry out a cold analysis in the event of errors).
• Encourage the Romanian state to speed up the rate of creation and activation of medical records in DESI (Electronic Medical Records), so that patients can have immediate access to their medical records, regardless of where they were treated.
• To urge the Romanian state to ensure continuous, transparent monitoring and reduction of intra-hospital infections

The project is structured in three stages::

Project implementation stages (in line with objectives)

• STAGE 1 = 3 months (X-ray of the field/objective; identification of information needs, sources; partnerships, planning of advocacy plans/objective)
• STAGE 2 = 3 months (Finalisation of Advocacy/Objective plans and partial implementation, monitoring)
• STAGE 3 = 3 months (Implementation of Advocacy/Goal plans, monitoring)
• STAGE 4 = 3 months (Implementation of advocacy plans/Goal, monitoring)

MONTH 13 = Project monitoring, planning, scaling up and evaluation    

BACKGROUND (which demonstrates the need for the project)

From April 2021 - February 2022, FACIAS ran the "Be Informed, Not Abused!" project.

These issues were revealed, particularly by the approximately 1000 responses to the FACIAS Questionnaire and the over 3000 messages received."

For the Health component, five of the biggest issues raised for which we were asked for citizens' support concern the following issues:

• Easy access to the list of costs that concern them directly, in real time to see how much they have spent on their health (many Romanians complained that although they pay for health insurance, when they need treatment, they are often told that there are no funds)
• Easy access to their own medical history (Electronic Medical Record - for all history, as DESI should work)
• Video recording of surgeries (many have seen the benefits when, on laparoscope technology, they have been shown video footage of surgeries, making it easier for them to access explanations, visually)
• The danger posed to patients by hospital-acquired infections and the fact that they cannot easily find information regarding the hospitals they go to
• There are laws which, due to a lack of methodological implementing rules, are not applied.

 

Note: Each specific objective of the Project, being a project in itself, will have a dedicated section on the FACIAS website in the Project File "The Romanian patient - fair laws and maximum transparency"