site.btaCabinet Instructed to Provide BGN 2 Mln for State Mental Hospitals Now, Extra BGN 30 Mln for Psychiatric Care in 2025

An ad hoc parliamentary committee looking into the quality of mental health services and the rights of psychiatric patients, has decided to require of the government to provide BGN 2 million for state-owned psychiatric hospitals and ensure an additional BGN 30 million for next year. The decision was made Tuesday and was made public Wednesday at a news briefing by committee chair Denitsa Sacheva (GERB-UDF).

The BGN 2 million is to cover the costs of state psychiatric hospitals for caring for 273 patients who have been abandoned by their relatives. “It is very much likely that some of these people don’t need treatment at all but because no suitable social services are available for them, they have essentially been abandoned in the care of hospital staff,” Sacheva explained. She said that is inadmissible and urged the Finance and Health Ministries to find a solution to this situation the soonest possible.

Sacheva underscored that the ad hoc committee was established on a proposal by Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria but all parliamentary groups contributed its work.

The committee has drafted legislative changes relevant to psychiatric care and patients’ rights.

Stela Nikolova (Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria) said that the legislative changes are only the beginning. “I am happy that my colleagues did their best and we rallied around this non-partisan issue. I believe that we need to continue in the same direction so that we are not ashamed of the people who have found themselves in such a situation, and never get reports by the European committee against torture to say that Bulgaria is the worst example,” said Nikolova. 

“The committee has repeatedly raised the issue of the funding that is provided for psychiatric care in Bulgaria, as well as for the problems of patients with mental conditions and the medical personnel that takes care of them,” said Sacheva.

At one of its meetings, the committee heard Dr. Vladimir Nakov from the National Centre for Public Health and Analysis cited data from a monitoring of psychiatric care in Bulgaria in 2023, which revealed a myriad of problems, including understaffing, the ageing community of psychiatric doctors, low pay, poor equipment and inadequate facilities. Bulgaria is last in Europe in terms of number of psychiatrists, Dr. Nakov said. 

In its 2023 report on psychiatric care, made public in February 2024, the Ombudsman’s Office wrote that systemic problems persisted despite numerous alerts to the responsible institutions. The report said that underfunding and chronic staff shortages remained unresolved, hampering the provision of quality medical and health care for persons in all categories of inspected facilities. There was a lack of public financing for social activities in places for serving sentences so that social work and the reintegration of prisoners remained problematic for many prisons.