EU healthcare is a bribery hotspot
Healthcare in the EU is a corruption hotspot: six percent of people have paid bribes to get medical care and a third relied on personal connections. That’s according to a new report by Transparency International.
The report, called the Global Corruption Barometer, also found that a third of people thought corruption is getting worse in their country and almost half said their government is doing a bad job at tackling it. Researchers surveyed 40,600 adults across 27 countries between October and December last year.
People were asked whether they had had contact with six key public services in their country in the previous year: schools, public health care, identity documents, welfare benefits, the police and the courts. They were then asked whether they had paid a bribe, given a gift or did a favour in order to receive the services they needed.
Of the people who had contact with at least one public service, seven per cent paid a bribe to receive the service. Denmark, Finland, and Sweden register the lowest bribery rates in the region (less than one per cent). The highest rates are in Romania (20 per cent) and Bulgaria (19 per cent), followed by Hungary (17 per cent), Lithuania (17 per cent) and Croatia (14 per cent).
Looking specifically at (public) healthcare, the results are as set out in the table below:
Bribery is significantly more widespread in Eastern Europe but well-digitalised countries like Estonia are the exception to this generalisation. There are some surprising outliers in Western Europe, such as Belgium.
Jonathan Cushing, head of the Global Health Program at Transparency International, tells HBI: “We asked people if they had paid a bribe or used personal connections to access healthcare. The results highlight a great dissonance in how healthcare is provided and the differences in the availability of healthcare from country to country.
“When the system works correctly, GPs should handling referrals but our evidence suggests some countries are failing in this. When it comes to bribery, our definition would include a gift – it’s any abuse of position for personal gain.
“The pandemic has exacerbated things and it would be interesting to redo this survey in a year or two and see how the results differ. It’s interesting that where countries have a more digitalised system, bribery and the use of personal connections fall.
“The solution to the problem starts with looking at the drivers. Lack of availability of care is one – waiting lists. And it’s important to look at digitalisation, though there you have to be careful not to marginalise groups like the elderly. Digitalising the back end is always an option too.”
The EU Corruption Barometer report can be read here, and further information on Covid and corruption in service delivery can be found here.
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