What the newspapers say: July 25, 2008

Romanians have yet another functioning law in theory but dysfunctional in practice due to lack of funds available, one newspaper reads on Friday. Elsewhere in the news, journalists and state counselors will run for a seat within the Parliament in this fall elections. Last but not least, former Conservative leader Dan Voiculescu confirmed that he collaborated with the Communist secret police, Securitate.

Gandul reads about a brand new law which is dysfunctional in practice: law 157, applied starting yesterday, was initially drafted and proposed by a Democrat Liberal deputy. The law rules that patients in hospitals can claim back the money they pay for the pills bought with prescription.

Even if the law seems to resolve all issues in the health sector, it is dysfunctional for the simple fact that there are no funds available to cover this sort of spending. Nonetheless, hospital managers are now compelled by law to return patients the money they paid for their own treatments.

Democrat Liberal Sorin Paveliu, the deputy who proposed the law declared that all patients need to do is keep their prescriptions and invoices and request in writing for they money to the hospital’s management.

If refused, patients can sue them in order to receive their money. Paveliu declared that patients had the opportunity to sue hospitals before but now they have a legal framework to support them.

Because hospitals lack the money to cover all prescriptions, managers will pretend to ignore the invoices received because this year, over 80% of the hospitals’ budget was used for salaries and other bonuses.

Reactions are split, naturally: if patients are content and optimistic, hospital managers are going nuts because they fear patients will protest in hospitals if their requests are not met. This law should have been applied last year but it was postponed by an emergency ordinance due to lack of funds. However, the government will not be able to issue emergency ordinances during the parliamentary holiday season.

Elsewhere in the news, politicians seem to gather up their candidates for the upcoming fall parliamentary elections, Evenimentul Zilei reads. In the spotlight today, President Basescu and his close state counselor Catalin Avramescu and journalist Sever Voinescu.

The newspaper reads that the two will run as Democrat Liberal candidates for a seat in the Parliament. Both will run for a mandate from Prahova county, north of Bucharest where the two come from.

Voinescu decided to give up his job as a journalist during his campaign but Avramescu declared that he would only give up his job as state counselor when and if he wins the elections. The newspaper reads that next in line will be Traian Ungureanu, another journalist known to support president Basescu.

Both Avramescu and Voinescu declared that the political class needed to be changed in order to dismantle the oligarchy that currently rules Romania.

Last but not least, all newspapers today read about former Conservative Party leader Dan Voiculescu who has confirmed that he collaborated with the Communist secret police structures. Cotidianul reads that Voiculescu declared that his connection with the Securitate officers was not continuous or clear.

Voiculescu added that he only gave out some random opinions about the foreigners he knew and that he did no harm by doing this. Moreover, he admitted that he did it in exchange of money.