Regina Maria Health Network – the first player to completely integrate general medicine and dental care in Romania

Regina Maria Health Network marks a new stage in Romania’s approach to healthcare, becoming the first fully integrated system of general medicine and dental services. With over 14 years of experience in the Romanian dental market, Dr. Leahu Dental Clinics become Regina Maria Dental Clinics – a significant moment in the partnership initiated in 2023, representing the largest transaction in the Romanian medical field at that time. As a result of this agreement, Dr. Ionuț Leahu – the founder of Dr. Leahu Dental Clinics kept 49% of the shares, while the majority stake was acquired by Regina Maria.

Fady Chreih, CEO, Regina Maria, pointed out: ”One of our objectives is to develop integrated healthcare services, at the quality standard expected by Romanian patients, addressing all health problems. Dental health is an essential part of this ecosystem. Thus, after a long period of following the evolution on the dental services market, a year ago, we entered this segment by acquiring a majority stake in Dr. Leahu Dental Clinics. And today, with Regina Maria Dental Clinics, we are changing the paradigm by taking an integrated approach to health.”

A medical system that integrates oral health and general health

As an integral part of this evolution, Dr. Ionuț Leahu, the founder of Dr. Leahu Dental Clinics, explained: „We realized that a genuine change in the Romanian health system would take decades, but in the private health care sector, we have managed to bring oral health to the forefront and to ensure that our patients have access to all the medical specialties they need for a comprehensive health care starting at their birth and going throughout all their lives. It’s been one year since we joined resources as two leaders in the medical field and worked together multi disciplinarily to connect oral health with the health of the whole body. Regina Maria Dental Clinics is the result of our efforts to create a medical ecosystem that treats people, not just dental conditions, from the first tooth throughout their entire life, by looking after their overall health”.

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For patients, Regina Maria Dental Clinics means a comprehensive, multidisciplinary and integrated approach to dental health, focusing on lifelong patient care and providing personalised treatments tailored to each individual’s needs, with constant attention to the quality of care.

„Today, we are a team of over 11,000 people, including 3,500 doctors, who are setting out on a new and evolving direction together, to make all medicine available to patients. We are the most well-established medical group in Romania, but we have a lot of building to do to ensure that our vision, One Health, is on the minds of the general public. In the coming years, we will focus on educating people to rethink their idea of health, integrating the skills of the medical team and expanding our presence in the country beyond the 12 counties we are currently in”, Dr. Ionuț Leahu added.

Although it is a long and extensive process, the first steps towards a complete medical ecosystem have been taken. Thus, in the existing dental locations, medical analysis labs for patients are starting to be included – this is already happening in Iasi, Cluj and Turda, and will continue in other cities. Dental cabinets will also be integrated in Regina Maria locations in the country. Moreover, dental patients with special situations, requiring general anesthesia or other complex medical procedures, will have access to Regina Maria hospitals for such procedures.

Oral health is closely linked to whole-body health

The most recent studies in the field, published by The Journal of the American Dental Association, show that oral health is intrinsically linked to the body’s overall health, influencing conditions such as diabetes, endocarditis, cardiovascular disease, pregnancy and birth complications, pneumonia, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, and that proper dental care can improve control of these conditions. Several cancers have been linked to gum disease – these include cancers of the mouth, gastrointestinal tract, lungs, breast, prostate gland and uterus.

The association between periodontitis and diabetes has gathered the most evidence to date, with researchers believing that there is a ‘two-way’ correlation between the two: periodontitis can increase the risk of diabetes and vice versa. A 2017 study suggested that systemic inflammation caused by periodontal disease can worsen the body’s ability to respond to insulin, while research published in 2023 found that people with diabetes treated for periodontal disease reported a 12 to 14 percent decrease in total health care costs.

Moreover, data from the 2023 Romanian Dental Barometer study shows that 2 out of 3 Romanians believe they have no dental problems and more than half of Romanians do not visit the dentist at all, while the incidence of each oral condition has increased over the past 6 years.

„Through Regina Maria Dental Clinics, we connect dental health with whole-body health and strengthen access to all medical services, treating all patients with health problems through quality service and care for people”, Dr. Ionuț Leahu pointed out.

Regina Maria Dental Clinics becomes an integral part of the medical ecosystem of over 3,500 doctors who are at the patient’s disposal, covering all specialties in general medicine.

The dental services available through Regina Maria Dental Clinics can be accessed by patients in the most important cities in the country – Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Brasov, Timisoara, Iasi, Sibiu, Constanta, Oradea, Craiova, Galati, Turda, Ploiesti and Pitesti, offering the highest quality services and extraordinary medical care.