Sofia, Bulgaria.

2014

 

After a road accident, a man that was badly injured was being transported by an ambulance. At the hospital the number of family members, friends and work colleagues outnumbered that of the specialists waiting for him. That wasn’t hard; only one medic was available at the moment.

Understaffing is a problem affecting the whole Bulgarian Public Health System. Through the year several hospitals and emergency-response institutions have participated in strikes and demonstrations demanding higher wages. The core of the problem, according to them, is that many health professionals fly away from the country towards better paid jobs, usually in Western Europe.

The problem means that emergency operations have to wait weeks until they can be performed due to the lack of surgeons and the heavily occupied schedules of those who remain in the country. It also means that at places, a single nurse will have to attend up to fifty patients. Regardless of the abilities and skills of the personnel, this situation diminishes the quality of the health services the citizenry receives and leads to a wide mistrust, from the side of the society, on their health system.