The Chairman of the Bulgarian Medical Union, Dr. Ivan Madzharov, expresses his approval for the priorities announced by the new Minister of Health, Prof. Hristo Hinkov – to stop the uncontrolled growth of the healthcare network in the country and to reduce the co-payments made by patients.
“We should not forget the inverted pyramid – out-of-hospital care is underestimated at the expense of in-hospital care. And last but not least – the cadre deficit, which does not threaten us, but is already a fact,” added Dr. Madzharov.
According to him, if those 25 percent who are of retirement age are released from the ranks of doctors and nurses, the calculations that are made about the available personnel status of the health system will not be correct.
According to Dr. Madzharov, when talking about increasing the salaries of doctors, the fact is missed that in Bulgaria there is the highest percentage of payment for medicines in the EU compared to all the funds that are allocated to healthcare. “The average share for the rest countries is 15 percent and in Bulgaria the payment for medicines is almost 45% of all costs. One of the tasks that a health minister should set himself is to correct this imbalance,” believes Dr. Madzharov. The chairman of the BMU commented also that it is important not only how much money the budget allocates for health, but also the further implementation and distribution of the resource.