Half Of Romanian Pharmacies Can’t Pay Debts To Medicine Suppliers, Budget

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Romania has between 4,000 and 5,000 pharmacies.

"About one third of the pharmacies countrywide can't pay their debts and the number of pharmacies sued over debts to medicine wholesalers increases by the day. Half of the pharmacies in the country might face insolvency by the end of the year unless authorities come up with a solution to this problem," the secretary general of the Pharmacists' College, Ioan Uivarosi, told a news conference Wednesday.

Uivaros said the situation was prompted by the government's recent decision to extend the term by which local health insurance houses should pay debst to pharmacies to six months instead of three. He added the bulk of debts was amassed in June and July and the measure is applied retroactively as of June 2009.

Uivaros added that although the deadline to cash invoices for compensated medicines and free medicines included in national healthcare programs was set at three or six months, it actually takes about seven months for pharmacies to get their money.

The Government authorized the National Health Insurance House and county health insurance houses to buy medical services and medicines worth 2.8 billion lei (EUR1=RON4.2995) in 2009, and extended their payment deadline to six months to allow them to make the payments in 2010.

Mid-October, the Pharmacists' College warned pharmacies might stop providing compensated and free medicine if they can't get their money back soon enough and such a decision would have drastic consequences on all patients, especially those suffering from serious illnesses, such as cancer, diabetes and hepatitis, for whom treatment is essential. The College added that pharmacies and patients in rural areas will be the most severely affected.