site.bta Medical Association Chief Wants Health Care Spending to Be Increased by Half a Billion Leva Next Year

Medical Association Chief  Wants Health Care Spending to Be Increased by Half a Billion Leva Next Year

Sofia, October 15 (BTA) - Health care spending should be
increased by at least half a billion leva next year, Bulgarian
Medical Association (BMA) President Tsvetan Raichinov said,
interviewed by BTA earlier this week.

"The money which is to be allocated for health care next year
should be no less than the amount available this year, which
includes the 225 million leva increase already made earlier in
the year and another update by 117 million leva," Dr Raichinov
said.

"This will be just enough to provide the same amount of public
health services as this year without adding anything new and
without revising prices. But in fact, it is necessary to have an
additional 500 million leva at least," he said.

The National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) will be out of money
in the last two months of 2014, unless the second update of its
budget by 117 million leva becomes a fact, Raichinov warned. "I
hear that NHIF has decreased the amount of regulated services by
40 per cent, which means that access to medical specialists
will be severely limited in the last three months of the year,"
he noted.

If the second NHIF budget update is cancelled, it is possible
that doctors and patients will stage protests, because doctors
will be left without wages and patients will be deprived of
medical treatment, Raichinov said. "It is wrong even to think
along these lines. You cannot leave a nation without public
health services," he argued. Although the new Parliament will be
fragmented into as many as eight political groups, they must
find a solution, because this is their job, he added.

BMA wants the government to pay its full share of health
insurance contributions, beginning next year. "This is the best
and only solution," Raichinov said.

According to him, the fact that there are people who have no
health insurance accounts is a problem of the government, not
the individuals themselves. He suspects that the government is
reluctant to do something about it, because raking up the issue
will reveal the fact that there are at least 300,000 people who
have no hope of getting a job and earning an income and then the
government will have to pay for their health insurance as well.
"They do not want the problem solved," he asserted.

Raichinov advised against enlarging the scope of health care
costs covered by NHIF, because NHIF's money is not enough even
now and the institution is in a state of collapse.

Before the elections to the previous Parliament, BMA signed
cooperation agreements with all parties, but the political
promises were fulfilled only partially. Some of the things did
happen, but there was too little time, he said. One
accomplishment was the criminalization of assaults on medical
professionals, but there is more to be done in this respect,
Raichinov said.

Sharing his expectations in the wake of the October 5 early
parliamentary elections, he said he expects stability, security
and a willingness to build on past achievements. "The meaning of
the word 'reform' has been seriously eroded. We need to choose
a model that works," Raichinov said, noting that the ambulance
service in particular must be reformed.