Hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians are without a personal doctor
Hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians are without a personal doctor. This is what the government’s national map of long-term health service needs shows.
More than 800,000 people in nearly 4,000 settlements do not have access to a personal doctor. Pleven region has the most general practitioners – one in 1,311 health-insured. The least are in the districts of Kardzhali and Razgrad, where one specialist has more than 2,500 patients.
The average age of GPs in our country is nearly 60 years, and a quarter continue to work after retirement. Waiting for an examination is a challenge for some, for others it is not, but they report a problem.
Razgrad is among the most affected – there are only 45 jeeps per 100,000 inhabitants.
“If there is some payment for disadvantaged areas, it is not as symbolic as it is at the moment, of 100 leva, with which colleagues cannot even pay their rent, in small settlements there will be no need to walk to the city, for take, for example, the eye department,” said Dr. Selime Karagyozova.
Therefore, among the proposals of the authorities are one-time assistance for the disclosure of the practice in a hard-to-reach and remote area, other sums for expenses and for additional personnel.
The forecast of the Institute of General Medicine is that in the next 10 years between 80-90% of general practitioners in Sofia will be of retirement age.
Doctor Denitsa Daskalova has 15 years of experience. There are about 3,800 patients enrolled. On average, between 15 and 20 new ones arrive per month. He shared that not all reviews are paid for by the Box Office.
“Almost all of us are at the threshold of our possibilities. For all these 74 children who visited me today, I receive BGN 2.90 each for being my patients, but they will undergo several more examinations, if someone gets worse, for control examinations, the funding is one-time, no one pays me for these 74 examinations and I have to have 4,000 patients to tie a good budget based on the number of people enrolled,” said Dr. Denitsa Daskalova.
Digitization is the key, say patient organizations.
“With remote exams, it can help shorten the patient’s journey to the doctor by seeing them over the Internet,” said Victor Pasca, chairman of the National Patient Organization’s Board of Directors.
The expectations of the authorities are towards 2030, due to the reduction of the population, in order to have a greater coverage of GPs.