Millions of Bulgarians who regularly pay their health insurance taxes were affected by the problems between the General Practitioners and the Bulgarian National Health Insurance Fund, as the GPs started protests on Monday. “There is a lack of communication between the Fund and the doctors,” the GPs said and pointed out the delayed payments for the last three months were a major reason for their protest. “We cannot pay the rents for our offices, and the bills for electricity, heating, water, and Internet,” doctors complained.
The chairman of the National Union of General Practitioners in Bulgaria, Lubomir Kirov, said that before the protest was launched, a number of other measures were tried. Declarations were filed and protests organised in front the Council of Ministers before the national strike started as a final measure. Along with the delayed payments from the National Health Insurance Fund to the doctors, the Fund proposed for a reduced financing of prophylactic examinations.
”The law cannot be broken but that is what is happening now, considering the Health Insurance Law. The National Framework Agreement is also broken,” doctor Lubomir Kirov said. “Millions that were supposed to go for payments to the GPs are just blocked. This is the money of all Bulgarians who pay their health insurance taxes. We disagree with the discredited health reform and with the fact that no one takes responsibility for the situation. This affects the work of doctors and turns them into beggars. You can imagine the situation when GPs have to beg and file written requests in order to send a patient to a specialist after their quota has finished. Should we beg to receive health service when we pay for it? This is not only a doctors’ protest. We protest also as citizens because everybody can become a patient and we all pay taxes. Most of the patients know that the protest protects their interests, too. We also count on the support of patients’ organisations,” Mr Kirov said.
In the middle of the week Bulgarian PM Boyko Borissov announced that the Health Insurance Fund had received financing and payments to GPs must start immediately, which led to the end of the protest. The doctors said, however, that they were ready to start protests again if financing for prophylactic examinations was reduced and financing for consultations was not raised. Meanwhile, the government announced the health insurance tax would be raised by 2 percent. It is expected that this would bring 300 million lev (150 million euro) to the National Health Insurance Fund in order to cover additional expenses by the end of the year.
English: Alexander Markov
