RECORDER DOCUMENTARY. The healthcare system

Over the last year, Romania has suffered a health crisis of unprecedented proportions and the nation has realised that the way the healthcare system works affects all our lives directly. Some of us ended up in hospital, others had family members who were admitted, and still others feared they might end up needing a bed in intensive care themselves. But the malaise that’s ailing the sector set in before the pandemic arrived.

There’s more to Romania’s health service than hospital buildings staffed by people in white coats. Behind them lies a vast and convoluted system of machinery that eats up over EUR 9 billion a year, and the law governing its operation has been tweaked 2,000 times.

We spent a whole year of research exploring the maze of interests, vanities and complex regulations in an effort to understand the workings of the health service we rely on when we fall ill.

We delved into archives and went back in time to find the roots of the big problems, tried to unravel the tangled web of payments and explain it with a simple animation, and talked to people with knowledge of the system and different perspectives on it: politicians, health policy experts, and doctors from several generations.

This documentary doesn’t offer a verdict or any miracle cures. Instead, it seeks to give the clearest possible picture of how the system works and what needs to be done going forwards.

Part of the cost of making this documentary was covered by a grant from the Romanian United Fund.

This video has English subtitles.