On Sunday, 21 June, at 10.00, the Sports School for Children and Juniors in the municipality of Ungheni hosts the second edition of the «Hippocrates Cup» women’s volleyball tournament. The contest is dedicated to Medical Worker’s and Pharmacist’s Day and is organised by the Ungheni Health Centre, this year together with the city hall.
From a debut with four teams to a «republican» tournament
The tournament has a short history: it was born only last year. In June 2025, «as a premiere», the Ungheni Health Centre held the first «Hippocrates Cup» women’s volleyball event — also on Medical Worker’s Day. Four teams took to the court then — the Ungheni Health Centre, «Fulger», Todirești Gymnasium and the Ungheni Medical College — and the organisers promised, in their very closing post, a comeback: «next year we invite all who wish to take part».
The promise is being kept. This year’s edition, however, comes with changes that reveal the organisers’ ambitions. Whereas in 2025 it was a local contest carried by a single medical centre, the 2026 poster bills it as a «Republican Tournament», moved to the Sports School hall and backed by the city hall. The head referee will be Victor Nazari, a well-known figure in Ungheni volleyball — a coach at the Sports School and the person in charge of women’s volleyball competitions at district level.
Just how «republican» the tournament will actually be remains to be seen: the list of participating teams and their number have not yet been made public, and the leap from four local teams to a contest with teams from across the country would be a big one.
The celebration behind the match
The date is not chosen by chance. Medical Worker’s and Pharmacist’s Day is marked in the Republic of Moldova on the third Sunday of June — in 2026, precisely on 21 June — and was established by presidential decree back in 1994. It is the day the system honours its doctors, nurses and pharmacists. In Ungheni, instead of a formal ceremony, the gesture takes the shape of a volleyball tournament.
The people the tournament celebrates
Behind an afternoon of sport stands a profession under pressure. Because, beyond the festivity, the Ungheni district’s medical corps is thinning year after year.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics show a steady erosion. In 2014, 171 doctors worked in the Ungheni district; in 2022, the latest year with district-level data, 145 remained — 26 fewer, a drop of 15 percent. Mid-level medical staff — nurses — fell even more: from 578 to 484, that is 94 fewer people (minus 16%). In other words, over eight years the district lost around 120 medical workers.
Relative to population, the density of doctors in Ungheni — about 17.7 per 10,000 inhabitants in 2022 — remains far below the national average of 50.1. The comparison should be read with caution: the country-wide figure is «inflated» by Chișinău, where the republican hospitals and leading specialists are concentrated. Still, the real gap between the capital and the districts remains huge.
The pressure is clearest at Ungheni District Hospital, which is now looking, through a public recruitment notice, for doctors to fill 25 vacant posts across 13 specialties — from anaesthesia-intensive care, emergency medicine and imaging to neurology, surgery and internal medicine. The hospital’s director, Elvira Stati, recently explained why the posts stay empty:
I think very few would still come to the districts — only those tied to their home place. Otherwise, from the experience I’ve had, it is very hard to convince them to stay.
Elvira Stati, director of Ungheni District Hospital
On the primary-care side, the tournament’s organiser — the Ungheni Health Centre — remains one of the district’s largest medical institutions: with 43 doctors and 160 nurses, it provides primary health care to more than 100,000 people from Ungheni and neighbouring districts, according to the National Health Insurance Company. It is precisely these people — and their colleagues in the hospitals and health centres across the district — who are being celebrated on 21 June.
The phenomenon is not just an Ungheni one. Nationally, the authorities speak of a shortage of between 700 and 1,200 doctors and pharmacists, depending on how it is counted, and are trying to draw young people to the districts with a larger relocation allowance — currently 120,000 lei, due to rise to 250,000 lei, paid in two instalments, from the 2027 graduating class, according to the health minister. The average wage in «health and social work» reached about 16,500 lei gross at the start of 2026 — above the economy-wide average, but rising more slowly than it.
More than a match
That is why a volleyball tournament in a sports hall is more than it seems. For one day, the profession that keeps the district’s hospital and health centres standing steps out of its white coats and gathers at the net — a moment of community for people who are ever fewer and ever more in demand. And if the «Hippocrates Cup» really does grow — from four local teams to a tournament with a «republican» name — Ungheni may gain, alongside a day of sport, one more reason to keep its doctors at home.
Information about the tournament comes from the official announcement by Ungheni City Hall and from the Ungheni Health Centre’s account of the first edition (2025). The figures on medical staff are the most recent district-level data published by the National Bureau of Statistics (2014–2022); for later years there is not yet data broken down by district. The vacancies at Ungheni District Hospital come from the institution’s official recruitment notice. The list of participating teams and the format of this year’s edition have not yet been made public by the organisers.