The mass one-hour protest of medics against the crisis in Bulgaria’s healthcare system, scheduled to start on January 21 2008, almost failed as only a few medics took part in it, mediapool.bg said.

Mainly smaller hospitals and centres for diagnosis took part in the protest, according to Dnevnik daily.

Medics protested against the poor funding of the healthcare system, the lack of a national framework agreement for 2008 and they demanded a return of the possibility to have two contracts with the National Healthcare Insurance Fund.

In Sofia, where most of the healthcare centres were, around 20 doctors and nurses in the Paediatric hospital protested, mediapool.bg said.

Neither the First City Hospital, nor any of the 18 university hospitals in the city protested. The personnel of Bulgaria’s biggest first aid centre Pirogov, also located in Sofia, did not protest because it was happy with changes made by its management, mediapool.bg said.

Mihail Zortev, doctor at the Kyustendil hospital, said that there were no protests at the hospital and he did not expect protests during working hours until the end of the week. It was not the right time for protests, he said. Protests should be held when Parliament was voting the budget.

Most of the larger hospitals in Varna, Pleven and Plovdiv, as well as Sofia’s Obstetrics and Gynaecology Hospital for Active Treatment Sheinovo supported the protest, Dnevnik said.

The medics in the centres for diagnosis and consultations said that the protest was justified as the healthcare system budget was “genocide of the patients” and demanded “normal working conditions”.

Medics at the hospital of Smolyan protested for an hour, those in the Kazanluk hospital supported the protest as well, mediapool.bg said. In Bourgas 30 medics from the General Hospital took part in the protest. Nearly 600 medics from the region of Dobrich protested, mediapool.bg said.

Lyubomir Kirov, representative of the union of general practitioners in Bulgaria, said that the protest aimed to show that the “Health Ministry, the National Healthcare Insurance Fund and politicians, among others, neglected the fact that the medics were doing their job well and wanted to do it better and make their patients feel more comfortable.”

The Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Union supported the protest.

According to the Bulgarian Medical Association between 70 and 100 per cent of the medics in the country took part in the protest.