They tried to take out a bag with patients' ID cards from the "St. George" University Hospital in Plovdiv during the police operation against the large-scale scheme for millions in embezzlement of the NHIF. This was told in the program "Speak Now" on BNT by the supervising prosecutor from the Plovdiv District Prosecutor's Office Dimitar Pehlivanov. He specified that the investigators found 15 empty beds and 15 missing patients. According to him, the ID cards were used in a scheme for fictitious hospitalizations, through which the ward's bed base appeared to be constantly full.
How did empty hospital beds become a machine for millions?
The large-scale scheme to drain the Health Insurance Fund through fictitious hospitalizations in the rheumatology clinic of the University Hospital "St. George" in Plovdiv was announced after a large-scale police operation in the health facility, which ended with the arrests of doctors. The alleged organizer of the fraudulent scheme, Prof. Mariela Geneva, herself said in court that fictitious hospitalizations are a problem for the entire health system. How is treatment done on paper?
Denitsa Tornyova spoke on the topic with the supervising prosecutor from the Plovdiv District Prosecutor's Office Dimitar Pehlivanov.
"The case is different in that several problems were comprehensively covered within the framework of a criminal proceeding, to which the public reacted in a way that I personally did not expect it to be so acute. But it showed an intolerance towards what has been happening or perhaps is currently happening in some healthcare facilities. It is unprecedented in history, since there have never been such large-scale investigative actions within the framework of a criminal proceeding in the largest hospital in Bulgaria, and the result obtained is, I dare say, quite satisfactory from the point of view of the fact that the objective truth in the case was largely revealed. Within a few months, we managed to collect such a large amount of evidence pointing to the guilt of certain individuals that we also have a number of confessions, a number of witness statements that clarify the whole picture. And yes, Prof. Geneva stated that this is a symptom of the entire healthcare system, such vicious practices are being carried out in many medical institutions.
BNT: You said that the investigation has been going on for months. However, we all found out about what was happening when we woke up with the base of the University Hospital “St. George“ literally blocked by the police. You have suffered a lot of criticism in this direction. Was such a literal police siege necessary?
- There was a need. This is a very carefully, precisely thought-out action that followed an algorithm in which we discussed the question of how the presence of the police, the prosecutor's office and other services would not traumatize the medical activity. Since we had information that inside the facility there were medicines that should not be there, as well as those with an expired expiration date, expensive ones, and so on. We also had information about the presence of other evidence that we had to collect as quickly as possible so that they would not hide, and such an attempt was made - to hide, albeit with the police presence. I am talking about one bag with ID cards that they tried to take out.
BNT: Let's clarify: a bag with ID cards of patients?
- ID cards of patients who were admitted to the ward using the check-in method with a printed sheet of paper. And most of all, to establish whether there were any fictitious patients in the clinic that day. And this could have been done when we closed the doors and counted the patients, and this could have been described in a corresponding protocol. I can say that the implementation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the prosecutor's office is like a textbook. On site, we found 15 empty beds, 15 missing patients who were documented, described in the relevant protocols, and in this way we supported our thesis that fictitious admissions were being made in the ward. The scheme operated in a uniform manner. When there were empty beds, in order not to create the impression of a lack of patients, fictitious data was filled in. This was done through relatives, loved ones, friends, colleagues, orderlies, all sorts of people, neighbors around, plus those who did not even suspect. I repeat, with this bag of ID cards, people were admitted who were discharged after one day. This was done so that the bed base was always full.
BNT: Is it possible at all that all these hundreds, thousands of fictitious hospitalizations could pass through one ward without the hospital management seeing a red light somewhere?
- If I answer you with “yes“ or something else, I will be speculating, since I am referring to the evidence in the case. At this point, we have no evidence of what the hospital management knew or did not know.
BNT: The data on replacing blood samples were particularly shocking. And what else?
- Replacing blood samples is a particular problem. In one of the cases, when more blood was taken from the patient, and this is done in order that, when there are empty beds, this blood can be attributed to a fictitious patient. This patient had an oncological disease. Which was transferred as data to more fictitious patients."