MORE than five per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) should be allocated for health care in 2006, Health Minister Radoslav Gaidarski said in Parliament this past week.

Gaidarski said this move would ensure between 350 and 400 million leva for health care. 

He also insisted that funds should be provided in the beginning of the year and said he supported the idea of ending the double-sided model of hospital financing.

Gaidarski said that in the past few years, allocations of state funding for health care in the middle of the year usually added up to a total of 4.9 per cent of GDP.

The ministry should provide funds for activities of the National Health Insurance Fund, he said, and not distribute them according to the number of patients as it had been doing up until now. Hospital financing from one source would guarantee the most just allocation of funding.

"By July 31 2005, the total sum of long-term and short-term liabilities of all hospitals stands at 175 million leva, including 147 million leva of hospitals with state share and 28 million leva of municipal hospitals," Gaidarski said.

Overdue payments totalling 94 million leva were a problem for both hospitals and suppliers. Eighty-three million leva were due to state share hospitals and 11 million leva were from municipal hospitals.

The largest share of debts had been accumulated from medicines and consumables, which stood at 122 million leva.

Some 15 of a total of 177 hospitals financed by the ministry account for the largest debts as of July 31, including university hospitals in Sofia, Plovdiv, Pleven, Varna and Stara Zagora and regional hospitals in Bourgas, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora and Haskovo.

Gaidarski also outlined priorities for his team and promised to bring school doctors back into the institution.  

School doctors were abolished several years ago when the government decided that the presence of staff doctors in schools was obsolete and that children should be treated by the family GP doctor.

He listed prophylactics, overcoming the demographic crisis, financial stability and European integration as priorities.

He also promised transparency in tenders for medicine deliveries for hospitals.

Gaidarski also presented his deputies: Dr Atanas Dodov, former MP, will be responsible for public health; Dr Valeri Tsekov, former MP, will be in charge of the European integration; Dr Emil Rainov will be deputy minister on national health policies and Dr Matei Mateev, former director of the University Hospital St Ivan Rilski in Sofia will be put in charge of medical activities.