Minister of Health Ion Bazac took the draft emergency ordinance that approves the application of this tax to the government’s table yesterday. If this piece of legislation is approved, it will go into effect immediately. The mechanism, called “clawback,” will allow for the “generating of a cash flow necessary for paying invoices, which producers will also benefit from,” according to the official.
“Nobody was consulted, and this worries us. These are arbitrary measures, which transform the Romanian environment into a hostile one, considering that medication consumption is one quarter of the EU average,” Dan Zaharescu, Chief Executive Officer of the Romanian Association of International Medicines Manufacturers, told Business Standard.
Some hospitals no longer have funds for drugs and investments, and may even delay the payment of salaries. Of the necessary budget for 2009, of RON 19.2 bln, the state has only approved RON 15.3 bln. The ordinance allows hospitals to engage in paying an additional RON 2.8 billion (some €700 million), which are to be collected next year. Thus the state will have the “necessary funds for the medical staff to receive their salaries for the last three months of this year, there will be funds for the patients to receive treatment, to benefit from compensated drugs, for tests and other investigations, and for hospitals to supply themselves with medications,” Bazac said.
The contributions from producers of medications would proportionally increase with the revenues received from the state for compensated or free-of-charge drugs. “The clawback system was or is still being used successfully in countries such as Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Hungary, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Ireland, and France,” the Minister added.
