site.btaMedical Association Demands Deputy Health Minister's Resignation Over Recent Drug Policy

The Bulgarian Medical Association (BMA) has requested Deputy Health Minister Ilko Getov's resignation, BMA Deputy Board Chair Nikolay Branzalov told BTA on Friday. He said that BMA's demand is based on Bulgaria's recent drug policy, the lack of clarity on the movement of medicines from their import in the country to the filling of prescriptions in pharmacies. 

Branzalov stressed that the resignation demand does not have any political aspect. 

As of 2019, there is a European directive according to which each package of a medicine has a unique number and it is traceable from the moment the medicine is manufactured.

According to Branzalov, 70% of doctors are currently unable to fully practice their profession because they cannot easily prescribe antibiotics and treat their patients.

The BMA supports digitisation and the introduction of the e-prescription, but its the pathway until the patient gets their medicine that needs to be made clear, and to date this has not been the case, he said. He added that for 30,000 of the e-prescriptions issued since mid to late October, the National Health Information System (NHIS) did not record whether the patient had taken their medication, what happened to that medication or whether the patient would have to go to a few more pharmacies to buy it. 

The BMA Thursday called for parallel use of paper and electronic prescriptions over a certain period of time and establishment of a digital register of all medical products available in Bulgaria.

The Parliamentary Committee on Health had a meeting on the matter on October 23, when Committee Chair Kostadin Angelov said that the biggest problem is the inability to monitor drug availability, and he suggested that the state's Information Services prepare an online pharmaceutical inventory.