Doctors outnumber nurses in Bulgaria, with 1831 nurses leaving the country in 2008 alone, according to Professor Stanka Markova chairperson of the nurses association.

With a required ratio of 1:2, Bulgaria has 36 000 doctors and only 30 000 nurses. The trend has been driven by a raft of reasons for year but no government has taken serious action to curb it, Markova said.

It was only in recent days that the Health Ministry requested information about the matter. The association will send a letter outlining its demands and seek a meeting with Heath Minister Bozhidar Nanev.

The organisation said that the staff shortage was spelling trouble for medical establishments and could result in closure of departments.

For example, Saint Georgi University Hospital has 33 vacancies for nurses, another 15 nurses are needed in Plovdiv Hospital in the southern city.

This is the situation in most of the major hospitals across the country, too. Fifty medical staff have quit at the hospital in Bourgas, on the southern Black Sea coast. The most gaping shortage is in intensive care units and surgical departments, where workloads are heavy and salaries low.

The lack of personnel is also affecting the quality of medical services and raising the cost of treatment, Markova said. Establishments with an insufficient number of nurses had higher mortality rates, she said.

Nurses gave up their jobs at public hospitals to go to private establishments, where they are better paid.

This leaves university hospitals with insufficient staff and this is where most Bulgarians go to have treatment, Markova said.

Many medical staff are looking for jobs abroad as there are vacancies in the UK, Spain, and Greece. In England, for instance, staff at social care institutions are paid more than 1300 pounds sterling against a paltry 400 to 500 leva at home, Markova said.

Source: Dnevnik.bg