The National Health Insurance Fund should not finance activities that are the responsibility of the state, said Dr. Nikolay Branzalov, chairman of the Management Board of the Bulgarian Medical Association. He cited crutches, wheelchairs and the treatment of children abroad as examples.
“The NHIF is not a state institution and should not undertake state activities,” Branzalov said in an interview with NOVA NEWS. According to him, the Ministry of Health has its own budget for these expenses, while transferring them to the Fund could limit the resources available for medical activities.
Criticism of the allocation of funds
Branzalov said that new preventive care activities had been included in the budget without explaining why they were being planned. He described the 10% increase in spending on medicines as an imbalance, given that funding for medical activities had not been increased by the same percentage.
The chairman of the Bulgarian Medical Association pointed out that the budget included 70 million for social activities. In his view, it must be clarified whether this will take additional resources away from medical care next year.
Proposal to centralize blood centers
Dr. Branzalov also commented on the proposal to merge the five regional centers for transfusion hematology into the National Center for Transfusion Hematology. The Bulgarian Medical Association does not reject the changes in principle, but insists that the centralization be carried out carefully.
“How will centralizing blood donation help when the incident has affected two or three regions?” he asked. According to him, following the chain-reaction crash on the Trakia Motorway, in which 11 people died and dozens were injured, citizens responded to the calls for blood donations on their own initiative. The patients were distributed among different medical facilities.
Delays in flu vaccines
The chairman of the Bulgarian Medical Association said that some general practitioners had still not received the flu vaccines. According to him, the deliveries had been delayed for technical reasons.
Branzalov said that similar distribution problems occurred every year, but the current delay could reduce people's interest in vaccination.
Sources: nova.bg