About the Benefits
Every year, tens of thousands of foreigners come to Chișinău for “affordable dental care” and high-tech medical treatments. Tens of millions of dollars are flowing into the country. Doctors, experts, and economists agree that Moldova has found a unique competitive advantage in the European market. The main driver of this medical tourism boom is dentistry, which attracts approximately 60% of all foreign patients. The geographic range of clients is impressive: Romania, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Israel, and even the U.S. and Canada.
Among the main advantages of dental tourism in Moldova are significant cost savings: the cost of treatment and prosthetics can be thousands of euros lower compared to other European countries, even when travel expenses are factored in. In addition, clinics offer short treatment periods and a free initial consultation.
A medical trip can be combined with a vacation—exploring Moldova, its culture, and its tourist attractions. Citizens of many countries can enter Moldova without a visa, and the trip offers the opportunity to visit relatives and friends or to make new acquaintances.
Prime Minister Vasile Tofan described the price difference:
“Getting your teeth done in Moldova costs 10,000 euros, while in Italy it costs 30,000 euros. Our dentists treat elderly Italians. This is an industry that didn’t exist before; the state didn’t invest money to create it, nobody thought of it—it was created by the private sector. And now it’s an industry that brings in tens of millions from exports, and our doctors work here and don’t leave.”
TheBattleAgainst Bureaucratic “Dragons”
According to experts’ estimates, Moldova is currently utilizing only 5% of its true potential in this sector, valued at the staggering sum of $1.5 billion. In the authorities’ view, the development of this sector—which appeared “out of nowhere”—is being held back by bureaucracy. Prime Minister Vasile Tofan believes these obstacles must be eliminated:
“For a business to be accredited, it must meet 35 pages of criteria. It even goes so far as to require a contract with a priest. I’m not joking. It actually says there must be a contract with a religious institution… How many regulatory red tape barriers need to be gradually cut back… If we don’t change anything, we won’t change as a country. And we need to bring order to these rules.”
“We cannot reduce a medical center to the level of a barbershop”
Former Health Minister Ala Nemerenco responded firmly to this statement, emphasizing that accreditation standards were created for patient safety and European integration, not for bureaucracy:
“I can say this much—until 2024, there were no unaccredited institutions, and that raises the question—what is the point of the CNEAS (National Council for Evaluation and Accreditation in Health—Logos Press note) if everyone met the accreditation standards from the start, given that the reality in some hospitals is deplorable. How did hospitals with mice or cracked ceilings pass accreditation, with equipment from the 1960s?”
She added that a medical center cannot be held to the same standards “imposed on a shoe repair shop or a barbershop.”
The former minister is convinced that standards should not be developed by ministry officials, but rather by experts in the relevant field—specialized committees within the ministry comprising representatives from academia and highly qualified specialists, with the participation of relevant professional associations and societies. In other words, standards in surgery are developed by surgeons, in dentistry by dentists, and so on for each specialty.
At the same time, in other countries—particularly in the U.S.—standards are much stricter than here, and the accreditation process poses a significant barrier. Could this be the reason we have such a large influx of tourists seeking a beautiful smile? Ala Nemerenco refutes this idea:
“High-quality medical services are one of the most important requirements in the EU accession process regarding health care, because accession will eliminate borders, including those of health care systems, so every EU citizen who comes to a medical facility in our country must be guaranteed access to services of a quality comparable to those in their home countries, as well as complete safety. Otherwise, we will have to pay hundreds of millions in damages.”
The Experts’ Position
The Moldovan Dental Association has also weighed in on this dispute. The association’s president, Oleg Solomon, called for reason and a differentiated approach. According to him, the requirements applied to a dental office, a dental clinic, and an inpatient facility cannot be established mechanically and uniformly, given that the nature of their services, risks, and infrastructure differ. The principle of proportionality should become one of the key criteria of the future regulatory framework.
“As a member of the FDI World Dental Federation and the European dental professional organizations to which it belongs—including representation on the Economic Council attached to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova— the ASRM can provide the Ministry of Health with relevant expertise, professional standards, and international best practices, so that the solutions adopted in the Republic of Moldova are comparable to those applied in modern dental systems. “We believe that sustainable reform can be achieved through effective dialogue between authorities, professionals, and the business community, with the common goal of a dental system that is safe for patients, modern, accessible, and free of unjustified administrative burdens,” the Association’s statement reads.
Resolving this conflict will show whether Moldova is ready to transform the private sector’s spontaneous success into a sustainable and safe industry.
For now, the former minister offers patients a single piece of advice—to seek treatment only at accredited facilities:
“If I were to explain the reasons given for not accrediting certain institutions, I’m afraid you’d stop going to the doctor altogether,” she concluded, promising to provide details next time.
Follow our updates
