The government decided: Hospital beds, reduced by 14,000 in the next 3 years. Ministry of Health: “Not all are used effectively”
The number of beds intended for continuous hospitalization will be reduced by 14,000, in stages, during the next three years, the Executive decided on Wednesday, through a decision approved in the government meeting.
The interim Minister of Health, Cseke Atilla, stated that Romania is among the countries with the highest number of beds per 100,000 inhabitants, over 700, while the European Union average is 511.
“Today, a new National Bed Plan was approved, valid for the period 2026-2028, which provides for the optimization of the number of beds for continuous hospitalization, financed by health insurance companies. In parallel, emphasis is placed on the development of alternative medical services, more accessible and efficient for patients, such as day hospitalization and ambulatory, as practiced in developed health systems”, announced the Ministry of Health (MOH), in a press release.
The Ministry of Health claims that “currently, there are many hospital beds and not all of them are used efficiently”.
The degree of occupancy of beds for continuous hospitalization is:
- 51% for acute patients;
- 60% for chronic patients.
According to the Ministry of Health, the newly approved plan better meets the needs of patients and aims to modernize the way in which medical services are provided by:
- “reducing avoidable hospitalizations;
- expansion of outpatient and day hospitalization services;
- more efficient use of existing resources;
- increasing the quality and performance of hospital medical services“.
“Specifically, for the period 2026-2028, the phased reduction of approximately 14,000 beds is foreseen, without affecting the population's access to medical services. The number of beds intended for palliative care is not included in the bed plan. The reform is correlated with investments in the health infrastructure, including through European funds and PNRR, so that patients can benefit from faster medical services, closer to their needs and of increased quality”, he also transmitted MS.
The National Bed Plan 2026-2028 will enter into force on May 1, 2026.
The statements of the interim Minister of Health
The interim Minister of Health stated, during a press conference held on Wednesday at the Victoria Palace, that it is the third such plan adopted by Romania.
Specialists believe that the optimal bed occupancy rate at a hospital is around 80%, Cseke Attila also said.
“This national bed plan does not in any way affect the quality of the medical services provided from here on in the health units with beds. If the EU average is 511 beds per 100,000 inhabitants, Romania has an average of 728 beds per 100,000 inhabitants. We are on the podium, in third place, as the highest number of beds per 100,000 inhabitants”, said the interim minister, quoted by Agerpres.
Cseke Attila emphasized that the national plan ensures “predictability, stability and efficiency” in the field of continuous hospitalization. He added that the draft normative act was in transparency for 40 days, on the MoS website.
“In recent years, a significant decrease in the occupancy rate has been observed, including at county hospitals. Apart from the Emergency Hospital in Bucharest, at the other emergency hospitals in the country, no emergency hospital outside Bucharest has an occupancy rate that exceeds 70%. One of the financing methods in the health system is the one that takes into account the number of beds. It is obvious that it is inefficient to conclude a contract for the provision of medical services for 100 beds when you you know the occupancy rate is somewhere around 50-60 beds in that hospital or maybe even less,” said the Minister of Health.
Cseke added that at the end of last year there were 116,650 beds under contract, of which 94.8% are beds contracted with public hospitals, and 5.2% are beds from private hospitals.
“This tendency to reduce the number of beds (…) also takes into account what has happened in recent years, namely the investments that have been made in the hospital system in Romania: equipment, new equipment, new technologies, new drugs introduced, on the one hand, respectively an important exponential increase in day hospitalization, which means that you solve the patient's medical problem that day and you don't have to hospitalize him continuously”, he stated.
In this regard, Cseke explained that in the year 2024, a total of 6 million patients were hospitalized for one day, which represented an increase of 15% compared to 2023.
“The distribution of this number of beds by county is done by the order of the Minister of Health, which is drawn up based on the indicators from the National Health Insurance House and the Ministry of Health. That is, the degree of occupancy for 2025, at the end of the year, is taken for each hospital, for each county, and a territorial application of this National Bed Plan will be proposed. This is how it has always been done, it is not the first time”, he pointed out.
Minister Cseke Attila emphasized that the national plan does not apply to beds intended for patients undergoing educational measures or safety measures, nor to prisons-hospitals or hospitals that offer palliative care. In all these categories of hospitals, the occupancy rate is almost 100%.
Hospital lobby. Photo: Dreamstime
