„Thank God, we had no epidemics. Once again, we were accompanied by purely administrative problems in our work. Very often we witness various patients who are not satisfied with one thing or another and when they react against a colleague, and this is actually not a problem of the specific doctor, but of the system and administrative errors“.
This was pointed out to bTV by the personal physician Dr. Gergana Nikolova.
Because according to statistics, over 2 million Bulgarians were hospitalized in 2024, Dr. Miroslav Nenkov commented:
„Many hospitals, many hospital beds, these hospitals have to make money somehow. And the way is this - people are hospitalized. Hospital treatment is expensive. The civilized world is trying to move some of the procedures that now require hospitalization to pre-hospital care - where it is faster, cheaper and just as effective. However, increasing the number of hospital beds has a political and business connotation.
“For example, the local mayor knows very well that his hospital is useless, but he makes every effort to maintain it and use it for purely political, not medical, purposes. Private initiative sometimes perceives healthcare as pure business - "it's like selling donuts," Dr. Nenkov also pointed out.
"Outside our country, 10% of GDP is usually allocated to healthcare, but in Bulgaria it is 5.5% and both systems are trying to cover themselves with a small blanket, which is a bit difficult", commented Dr. Gergana Nikolova.
According to her, many activities are carried out in outpatient medical care that save direct costs for the state and the taxpayer.
She focuses on the HPV virus, which causes four types of cancer - the vaccination program is about 1 million leva, and the direct costs of not immunizing are about 100 million leva. And at the moment, the program has not been scheduled.
"Why, as a society, can't we spare ourselves the pain, suffering, mortality and loss of loved ones?", asked Dr. Nikolova.