What do Parents Prefer: State or Private Healthcare?

In Romania, investments in health represent less than 5% of the country's GDP, our country being among the EU countries that invest the least in citizens' health, according to Eurostat.

The health system includes all activities whose main purpose is to promote, restore or maintain health. In Romania, the medical system includes the state medical system and the private medical system. Insured persons, as well as uninsured persons (in emergency medical services), can benefit from the services of the state medical system. It should be mentioned that the private medical system requires an additional payment for medical services, regardless of whether the patient is insured or not with the state medical system.

The hypothesis underlying this study is that patients "migrate" from state to private healthcare.

Before presenting themselves to a private clinic, most pediatric patients, at the urging of their parents, are not initially evaluated by the family doctor, due to the shorter waiting time, the possibility of choosing the pediatrician who performs the consultation and the higher quality of the services physician. But, regarding the number of consultations in a 6-month period, parents use state and private medical services in relatively equal proportions.