EURIPA is delighted to announce that the Rural Department of the Romanian Society of Family Medicine (SNMF), which is affiliated to WONCA, will host the Second Rural Health Forum. The venue will be at Sinaia in the Bucegi Mountains in Romania.
The First Rural Health Forum, held in Majorca in May 2010, was organized around four key areas; research, quality, education and policy in order to focus the discussions. The outcomes will be published but a summary is available on the EURIPA web site in its latest newsletter (http://www.euripa.org). The Second Forum will build on the Majorca Forum and the theme is:
Establishing and maintaining quality in rural family practice.
EURIPA is delighted to be working with SNMF and the chair of the Rural Group, Sandra Alexiu, as well as GPs: Zsuzsanna Farkas-Pall, Adrian Grom, Paul Serban,Mihaela Nastasa, Catalin Petrencic, Jorj Cristea, Catalina Rusu, Emma Erdos, Gindrovel Dumitra and many others. The SNMF will also organize a parallel session for their Regional Medical Meeting: Rural medicine, present and perspectives.
Romania has a central geographical position in Europe (south-east of Central Europe), at north of the Balkan Peninsula, half way between the Atlantic Coast and The Urals, inside and outside the Carpathians Arch, on the Danube (1075 km) lower course and has border with the Black Sea. According to the latest statistics available (1 July 2007), Romania has 21 537 563 inhabitants, of which 44.9% live in the rural area. A new census of population in Romania is scheduled for next autumn. The statistical data show that the rural population in Romania represents less than half of the total number of the inhabitants. Fewer than 40% of the total number of family physicians are working in the rural areas where there is a lack of basic health care and often limited access to modern medical services (Source: The National Institute for Statistic: http://www.insse.ro/cms/files/pdf/ro/cap2.pdf).
In 2008, Romania spent on average almost €280.00 for each individual on health care.
Marked by chronic underfunding, hospital-centered care and questionable auctions, today's Romanian healthcare is considered to be close to collapse. It is considered that health has never been a priority for the governments since 1989 and the Romanian health system's problems are exacerbated by a reduced number of health professionals, according to official statistics.
Owing to these extremely unfavorable circumstances, family medicine in Romania is experiencing a very difficult period. The financing of the primary health care system is extremely low. Family medicine is a registered medical specialty in Romania. The entrance exam. for this speciality is followed by three years of residency and it ends with an exit exam. This exam consists of four parts, of which one is a theory test and three practice tests. The training system faces some problems because of:
chronic underfunding due to the focus on the hospital financing system
an ongoing outdated curriculum for residency in Family Medicine training
every Romanian Medical School has a department of family medicine but there are very few academic posts for family doctors
lack of dialogue with the health policy makers.
The recent participation of Romanian family doctors in the European networks and international medical events reveals that they share the same passion with other colleagues from across Europe. Organizing the second EURIPA Rural Health Forum is a new opportunity that it is hoped will help to strengthen local initiatives, to enhance the decision-making in the rural areas and to raise awareness for the urgent actions needed to support primary care. Romania is keen to share the Romanian model for professional organizations, networking and community oriented primary care.
The Forum is being held in a beautiful area of Romania and there is the possibility of organizing some visits in the area.
Please come and support the Forum and Romania! More information will be available shortly on the EURIPA web site http://www.euripa.org and a web site dedicated to the conference at http://www.euripaforum2011.eu.