The Sofia Municipal Council convened an extraordinary meeting today, at which it changed the management of the 4th city hospital. According to Plamena Terziradeva - a municipal councilor from "Save Sofia" - the GERB-appointed director of the municipal hospital has not paid salaries to doctors since December.
“This is unacceptable - we are talking about a medical institution in which doctors and staff have been working without security for their income for months“, said Terziradeva. According to her, the situation is the result of systematic mismanagement and lack of transparency. “The director requested a loan from the Sofia Municipal Council without any reasoning. When we asked for an explanation of what he wanted the money for, we received no assistance,“ she added.
After inspections - both by municipal councilors and other institutions - serious violations have been found. Among them are the appointment of new employees when it is impossible to pay the salaries of the current ones, non-payment of full salaries and insurance contributions since December, as well as a sharp increase in liabilities - by nearly 95% for 2025.
“At the same time, revenues from the National Health Insurance Fund are collapsing, and we have serious doubts that contracts are being hidden through which funds are being drained,“ Terziradeva emphasized.
The results of the inspections of the Health Fund are also particularly worrying. “At least 15 patients were identified based on documents who were not actually in hospital beds. Similar discrepancies exist with patients financed by the Sofia Municipality. If these inspections become regular, the hospital risks being left without funding,” she warned. The protocols from the NHIF inspection show that there are problems with most patient files - missing documents and medical histories. “This is more than worrying, but also indicative,” said Boris Bonev.
According to Spasi Sofia, all these facts lead to one conclusion - the hospital is being deliberately driven to bankruptcy, with a real risk of its operations being suspended. In response to the crisis, all municipal councilors from the health commission - with the exception of the GERB representatives - submitted and asked the Municipal Council to adopt specific proposals today. The first is for a loan of 800,000 € to cover the accumulated debts. The second is for the IV city hospital to merge with the II city hospital and thus for the two health facilities to recover with a new interim management that will prepare the merger and manage the health facility until a transparent competition is held.
“The GERB appointments in healthcare do not lead to anything good - obviously,” Boris Bonev stated at a press conference after the meeting.