45% of Romanian patients seeking treatment at Austrian hospital suffer from rare diseases

Roughly 45% of the Romanian patients who requested the services of Wiener Privatklinik, or WPK, in the first 6 months of the year needed diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases, mainly rare forms of cancer.

It is estimated that one million Romanians suffer from rare diseases, but only 500 of the more than 6,000 known conditions are registered in Romania, highlighting the need for diagnosis and treatment abroad.

In Romania, the scarcity of specialists for certain conditions and limited access to treatments pose significant challenges for patients, particularly those with rare diseases such as brain tumors and certain oncological conditions like sarcomas and malformations.

WPK says that Romanian patients choose to be treated there because of access to state-of-the-art treatments and drugs. In Romania, the process of registering a new treatment is a long-term one, 2.5 years, while in Austria, it takes only 3 months.

Moreover, only 34% of orphan drugs, pharmaceutical agents developed to treat certain rare medical conditions and approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), are available to patients in Romania, compared to countries like Austria, where 77% of orphan drugs are accessible.

It is estimated that over 1 million Romanians are affected by rare diseases, while over 30 million people are affected across Europe. Wiener Privatklinik registers over 12,000 admissions annually, with approximately 45% being international patients from over 20 countries, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe.

Annually, the hospital has admitted over 1,000 Romanian patients, 60% of whom are cancer patients who have accessed the services provided by the Academy Central European Cancer Center at WPK.

Wiener Privatklinik has two offices in Romania, in Bucharest and Timisoara, providing Romanian patients with support for their medical visits to Vienna. This assistance includes information about costs, payment methods, accepted insurances, appointment scheduling, visa and transport assistance, guidance with medical records and prescriptions, as well as post-treatment monitoring, and more.

(Photo source: WPK press release)