Page 19 - THE ROMANIAN HEALTH CARE

the smoking among men, who smoke about four times more often as women
Problematic is

and significantly above the EU average. Smoking among young girls has an upward trend.

Alcohol consumption is at par with the EU average. Binge drinking among (older) men is a

public health issue, about half of men reported episodes of heavy drinking in their life, the

highest in
the EU. Young boys are prone to early drinking. Combined these risk factors are a

deadly cocktail for the development of cardiovascular diseases – the major cause of death in

Romania.

to

Access medical services is strongly divided between cities and the countryside, because of

a lack of medical staff willing to work in rural areas. This also means that mortality in the

likely to be higher than in urban areas. Underserved parts of the population
countryside is

mean that these will die sooner as “urban” people with better access to healthcare. People

from the countryside – with a lower average income - might lack the finances for the

substantial out of pocket payments needed in the Romanian healthcare system.

2.8 Discussion

Superficially the solution for the largest public health problem in Romania seems simple:

adjust the diet, stop smoking, drink moderately and start exercising. However, in reality this is

hard to achieve across the whole population. An incomplete picture of the challenges and

problems: Healthy food is not that realistic because of financial reasons for major segments of

the population. The increasing GDP per capita is not divided evenly over the population.

Young people in the major cities can earn a good salary - especially in IT - but income levels in

rural areas are on average a lot lower. For people with a low income, cheap fatty meats

provide a lot of calories in winter. Exercising is becoming more common in the cities, the

number of gyms is growing in the urban areas, but are mostly frequented by younger

generations. In Romanian culture are some misconceptions about a healthy diet, for example

the idea that eating large quantities of meat is healthy. However, there is an increasing

awareness among parts of the population about healthy eating, traditional - high fat foods -

are sometimes replaced by a lower fat variety. Romania lacks health education at school and

the role of the government in informing the population about health issues and options is

marginal. Improving access to healthcare in the countryside requires government

expenditure, which is in short supply while the budget deficit is increasing.

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