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Fri, May 25 2012
Bulgarian healthcare at the bottom of Europe's quality ranking
On September 23 2009, Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boiko Borissov unveiled a new scanner at the St. Ekaterina Hospital in Sofia.
Photo: Георги Кожухаров
The Bulgarian healthcare system offers the lowest quality services in Europe, an annual report of Health Consumer Powerhouse, a European provider of consumer information on healthcare, showed.
In 2008, the country was also among the poorest performers in the Health Consumer Index, but was still ahead of Croatia and Macedonia, both of which climbed up the 2009 list while Bulgaria sank further down the list.
The index gauges the quality of healthcare services on the basis of several criteria, including the observation of patients' rights, the use of IT, waiting time at the doctor's office, treatment results and access to drugs and services.
In the 2009 ranking, Bulgaria landed at the bottom of the list of 33 countries in four criteria, all related to access to medication.
The poor results were partially due to the lack of a law for the protection of patients' rights and the nonexistence of mechanisms for compensating victims of medical errors.
At the same time Bulgaria ranks first in terms of number of doctors per capita.
For the second year in a row, The Netherlands tops the health quality ranking.
Source: Dnevnik.bg
In 2008, the country was also among the poorest performers in the Health Consumer Index, but was still ahead of Croatia and Macedonia, both of which climbed up the 2009 list while Bulgaria sank further down the list.
The index gauges the quality of healthcare services on the basis of several criteria, including the observation of patients' rights, the use of IT, waiting time at the doctor's office, treatment results and access to drugs and services.
In the 2009 ranking, Bulgaria landed at the bottom of the list of 33 countries in four criteria, all related to access to medication.
The poor results were partially due to the lack of a law for the protection of patients' rights and the nonexistence of mechanisms for compensating victims of medical errors.
At the same time Bulgaria ranks first in terms of number of doctors per capita.
For the second year in a row, The Netherlands tops the health quality ranking.
Source: Dnevnik.bg
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Last week after 6 months of battling with the 'white mafia' with all kinds of friends helping and paying substantial amounts of money for care for my mother, who has contrubuted to the national budget for 35 uears and who was not terminally ill, but old with a few conditions, my Mum passed away. Bulgaria's lack of medical system and human and decent attitude towards patients, not speaking old patients, as recently well covered in Dnevnik news paper, is an unthinkable and appalling result of what happened to once not great, but fine medical care.
My [...]
Read the full comment UK neigbours with a quite a few conditions and no private insurance are the same age as my late Mum, showing that UK's health system is miles ahead, while Bulgaria should rate as a high risk country regarding the state of the health services and the demoralisation of the medical personnel. A high level of libaility for any case of neglect need to be introduced in Bulgaria, otherwise the latest emigration tendency in the country is that ex-pats are now taking their old parents to live with them in their newly adopted countries.
There is excellent health care in Bulgaria, some of the best in the world. However, it is only available privately to those who can afford it. Thus, the vast majority are excluded and forced to do without.
It worries me that this artical carries the comment "mechanisms for compensating victims of medical errors". I come from the UK where the National Health Service is so worried about the legal actions of patients that a large % of their budget has to go towards insurance premiums to cover the service. I fully believe that any medical neglect or incompetency should be dealt with via the legal system and health staff held responsible but to go down the route of compensation should be looked at very hard and the implications costed and understood before adoption.