I got acquainted with the briefing that the Ministry of Health, the Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Interior gave about the case of the hospital in Plovdiv. Indeed, some of the things are quite worrying. We are talking about a scheme that has been operating since 2021 and, as I heard, it is about the draining of nearly 3 million euros through clinical pathways and fictitious hospitalizations. He announced this to Lili Marinkova in the studio “FACTI“ and the show “Conversation“ Dr. Georgi Petrov, MP from “Progressive Bulgaria“.
“This is quite worrying information and I need to get acquainted with the details soon in order to comment more specifically, but I don't remember there being such an action that was officially released recently. In order to resort to such a serious action, there is most likely quite serious evidence for this“, Petrov pointed out.
He stressed that a clear distinction should be made between the different forms of violations in the reporting of medical activity. “When we talk about draining and clinical pathways, it is very important to make a clear distinction - when we have hyperdiagnosis, when some clinical pathways are exaggerated and when we are talking about absolutely fictitious patients who do not even step foot in a hospital, but are only hospitalized on documents. This is something that is illegal and criminal, and we cannot remain indifferent to the discovery of such schemes“, said the MP.
According to him, the problems are related not only to specific cases, but also to the way in which the healthcare system has been structured over the years. “After 2000, doctors were forced to work for a standard, because hospitals became commercial companies. We are talking about a quantitative standard, not a qualitative one, and it was a matter of time for this system to degenerate over the years“, said Petrov.
“At one point, doctors became merchants who had to trade with the number of patients who passed through the relevant department. This puts doctors in a difficult situation when professional ethics collide with the economic requirements of the system. No matter how much you try and be moral, at some point you are forced by directors and superiors to accept patients because you don't have enough clinical pathways to earn salaries, and they tell you: "Either accept patients as much as possible, or you won't get paid," Petrov said.
“The information that came out of the prosecutor's office is that there are doctors who did not want to participate in such fictitious activity and received a salary of 1,000-1,500 euros, and others who participated received 6-7 thousand euros. But this is unofficial, because I have not seen any evidence. If you have morality and work according to the principle of morality, you cannot earn the necessary income to have some standard, to earn a salary“, said Dr. Georgi Petrov.
See more of the conversation in the VIDEO.