Alexandru Rogobete, back as health minister, spoke on Wednesday evening, 21 October, on Antena 3 about money, not about a budget amendment already signed. He said the whole health sector needs about 11.5 billion lei for unpaid invoices and to close the year. Invoices to suppliers, he added, have been outstanding since July, especially at the National Health Insurance House.

Of that sum, the Health Ministry needs 1.2 billion lei. Of those, 800 million are for emergency care, emergency medicine and the ambulance service, plus other national programmes. The rest, he said, is needed for CNAS. The figures are Wednesday evening’s request. They are not an allocation already voted and not a payment order.

Rogobete said he hopes the budget rectification comes next week. If it slips, he will ask for money from the government’s Reserve Fund for hospital emergency rooms. That is an intention stated on television. It is not a government decision and not a transfer already made.

The same evening he asked every emergency unit for an urgent list of medicines and critical supplies. In the afternoon he met the medicines agency president and the Unifarm director, so resources could be moved if blockages appear or if there is a mass casualty. He asked for calm. He said the situation is not rosy, but that they are monitoring. He did not announce that hospitals had closed.

News.ro reported the remarks at 21:22. Headlines that turn 11.5 billion into money already paid close a step the government did not vote on Wednesday. In this piece the rectification remains a hope for next week. The Reserve Fund remains a reserve, not a payment.

The minister also spoke of a crisis in national programmes run by CNAS. That is his assessment, not the House’s accounts published in the same hour. This article does not announce the rectification, does not announce a finished audit and does not announce that emergency rooms received the stocks requested in the evening.

Image: FlaviusNITA, Bucharest Emergency Hospital (Floreasca), 14 October 2005, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons; the hospital in 2005, not Wednesday evenings UPU list.

Sources consulted: Rogobete: The whole health sector needs about 11.5 billion lei - News.ro, 21 October 2026; Alexandru Rogobete announces a serious audit at CNAS - HotNews, 21 October 2026.