Rogobete would raise doctors' on-call pay and send out 175,000 flu vaccine doses across the country

Health Minister Alexandru Rogobete would introduce progressively increasing on-call pay for doctors, and has also listed securing the supply of flu vaccines among the most urgent tasks of his mandate. Speaking on Antena 3's Wednesday evening program on October 21, he said that after the budget adjustment, fairly paying for on-call shifts is one of the most important things to address.

According to his plan, the more on-call shifts a doctor takes on in a month, the more they would be paid per shift, meaning the second, third and fourth shifts would pay progressively more. With this, he wants to better compensate the extra work and the strain that comes with it, and he would discuss the details with professional organizations and trade unions as well. According to a report by Mediafax, the minister also indicated that same morning that first-, second- and third-year residents would also receive on-call pay, though for now this is only a plan, since he did not specify either concrete amounts or a timeline for its introduction.

Regarding the flu vaccine supply, Rogobete announced that 65,000 doses were planned to be shipped out by the evening of Thursday, October 22, and a further 110,000 doses will arrive nationwide during the week starting October 26, bringing the total distributed to 175,000 doses. The minister had previously explained the faltering supply by pointing to delays in production at the European level, saying the problem affects not only Romania. According to Mediafax, as of October 15 there were barely 45,000 doses left in Romanian pharmacies of the Vaxigrip and Influvac vaccines combined, while there was sufficient stock of the nasal spray vaccine intended for children and adolescents and of the vaccine for those over sixty. Rogobete, who also kept his portfolio in the Niculescu government, said that alongside settling on-call pay, he would also continue the health programs he launched during his previous mandate, which he considers fundamentally important.

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