Romania: number of medical staff 2020

In 2020, there were approximately 66 thousand physicians in Romania, and over 18.5 thousand dentists. At the same time, there were 152,686 people working in the Romanian medical system as auxiliary medical staff and nearly 19.5 thousand pharmaceutical chemists. However, the relatively small number of medical personnel led to only 35 physicians and less than 10 dentists per 10 thousand inhabitants in the country as of 2020.

Number of physicians

The number of physicians in Romania has increased by over seven thousand medical professionals since 2017. Despite the increase, in 2020 there were only three physicians per 1,000 inhabitants in Romania. Moreover, the forecast for 2025 expects a very small increase in the number of medical professionals, amounting to only 3.18 physicians per 1,000 people. Because of financial reasons and better medical conditions, the majority of medical professionals in Romania chose either to practice their profession abroad or to work in the Romanian medical private sector. As a result, by 2019, over one third of physicians were employed in private hospitals or clinics.

Health expenditure

Other countries from Central and Eastern Europe, such as Slovenia, Czechia and Slovakia, spent over 6.5 percent of their country’s gross domestic product on health care in 2019. While the EU average expenditure as a share of GDP was seven percent, Slovakia spent 7.7 percent. In the same year, Romania allocated only five percent of its GDP to the health care system. Unfortunately, the forecast for Romania’s health care expenditure as a share of GDP for 2025 estimates an increase of only one percentage point.