The Foundation for the Defense of Citizens Against State Abuse (FACIAS) announces the launch of the project "Romanian patient – fair legislation and maximum transparency."
The project will run from July 2022 until July 2023.
The project's goal is to ensure patients' unrestricted access to the health system through persuasion and collaboration with state decision-makers, to reform laws in their service and to their fair and transparent application; eliminating abuses in the area is critical.
The Coalition of Organizations of Patients with Chronic Diseases in Romania (COPAC) and the Patients' College are FACIAS's project partners.
FACIAS is in active discussions with other groups about joining the cooperation and fighting healthcare fraud.
,,Pacient român – legi juste și transparență maximă” însumează cinci proiecte (obiectivele) ce vor fi transpuse, în scurt timp, în campanii dedicate de advocacy. Li se adaugă componenta de educație intracomunitară în domeniu.
The Project's specific goals are as follows:
- To assist citizens in increasing their knowledge and understanding of Romanian patients' rights;
- To identify the institutions responsible for developing application rules for patient-related legislation since.While there are laws, they cannot be applied due to a lack of these rules, which constitutes, at the very least, carelessness on the part of the institutions that had this legal task.
- To persuade the Romanian government to modernize the health card application so that the patient can access the system at any time and see for himself how much and on what the state has spent money in relation to his health;
- To encourage the state to take actions leading to the enforcement of the practice of video recording (in accordance with GDPR regulations) of surgical procedures in operating rooms, so that they can thereafter be utilised, including for the benefit of patients (to explain, visually, the surgical intervention, to perform analysis, in case of errors).
- To encourage the Romanian government to accelerate the production and activation of medical files in DESI (Electronic Medical File), so that the patient has rapid access to his own medical file regardless of where he was treated.
- To ascertain the Romanian government's commitment to continued, transparent surveillance and the decrease of intrahospital infections.
This initiative was inspired by the requests of individuals who complained about difficulties in the health system that they viewed as abuses while participating in another FACIAS project, "Be informed, not exploited!" between April 2021 and February 2022.
Many Romanians have complained that, despite paying for health insurance, when they need care, they are frequently told that there are insufficient funds or that they cannot view their medical history. Others have complained about hospital-acquired illnesses that have harmed or killed relatives, as well as regulations that are not enforced merely because methodological norms are slow to emerge. Enough people have recognized the need for video recording of surgeries; they recognized the benefits when they were given video images of the surgeries via laparoscope technology.
These issues were revealed, particularly by the approximately 1000 responses to the FACIAS Questionnaire and the over 3000 messages received."
FACIAS promotes , not only in accordance with its statutory mission, but also via its 14-year track record of activity, citizens' rights and strives to maintain transparency in the functioning of governmental institutions as a principle of democracy and the rule of law.