Health ministry reallocates funds to emergency services, leaving other programs unfunded

At a briefing, interim Health Minister Cseke Attila disclosed that the ministry is redirecting funds from multiple health initiatives to meet urgent expenses in emergency reception units and county ambulance services. The reallocation covers staff salaries and essential medical supplies, while an extra requirement of roughly ninety-eight million lei is projected for October, split among hospital emergency units and ambulance services.

To partially meet this need, the ministry plans to pull money from programmes such as HIV/SIDA, transfusion safety, maternal-child health and other priority actions, leaving those programmes without financing in December. Additional resources will also be taken from funds earmarked for resident doctors in locally administered hospitals. Cseke described the move as a temporary fix that does not solve the underlying structural deficit and urged the government to adopt a long-term budgeting approach. The ministry estimates the total financial need for national programmes and other expenses to reach about nine hundred eighty million lei by year-end.