Emergency Care Doctors in Sofia Continue Protests

Over 100 doctors staged a protest in front of the Emergency Care unit in Sofia to oppose the calls for a resignation of their director, Georgi Gelev.

Gelev's resignation was demanded by the Health Minister on Monday due to a number of incidents with patients after delays of ambulances.

The protests started on Thursday, when the doctors working at the Emergency Care unit in Sofia announced they were resigning collectively in a sign of solidarity.

Despite the protests, emergency care services were not stopped.

Angel Angelov, head of a directorate at the Center, made clear that over 90 resignations of employees of the Emergency Care unit in Sofia had been submitted by Friday morning.

Doctors, nurses and ambulance drivers from the Sofia-based Emergency Care unit say that it is high time to give a clear definition of emergency cases and to secure sufficient funding for emergency care services because it is hard and stressful work.

They say that the change of management will not make things better.

Yulian Yordanov, Deputy Chair of the Bulgarian Medical Association, backed the protesters, stressing that staff shortages were the most serious problem of the system.

The protesters are meeting Health Minister Tanya Andreeva at 11 am at the Health Ministry.