site.btaSeveral Sofia Hospitals Will Set Up COVID-Only Units

Sofia, November 4 (BTA) - The large hospitals in Sofia, Plovdiv,
 Bourgas, Varna and Pleven will set up COVID-only units, Health
Minister Kostadin Angelov said here Wednesday. Each of these
units will have 200 beds which will be only for COVID-19
patients.

The Minister was speaking as he presented to the ambulance
service the keys to 20 new ambulances purchased with funding
under an EU-supported project for development of the emergency
medical services system.

The Sofia ambulance service will keep 17 of the ambulances, one
will go to Varna, on the Black Sea, and two will be used the
second largest city of Plovdiv.

Reacting to multiple reports of ambulances driving patients
between hospitals for hours and trying to find where they can be
 taken care of, the director of the Sofia ambulance service, Dr
Georgi Gelev, said that ambulance crews will be advised via a
wireless communication system where beds are available. At this
stage the system has been installed at nine hospitals and the
rest are yet to have it. 
 
During a meeting between the Health Minister and hospital
directors, the question of the credibility of information about
the available COVID beds that the coronavirus coordination
centre provides, was raised as a matter of emergency. Dr Gelev
said that hospital directors will have to make sure the
admission unit of their hospital knows exactly how many ICU beds
 are available at any given time.

The Health Minister said that he will instruct all ambulance
services to report to the Ministry each morning any cases where
a patient has been refused admission by a hospital, so that the
Ministry can take timely measures.

He said he has ordered a probe into a recent case when a Sofia
hospital refused to take in a COVID patient and he was taken to
a hospital in the nearby town of Svoge, where he died. LN/RI