Bulgaria ranks First in the European Union in terms of Hospitals per 1 Million Population

Healthcare in Bulgaria has become more accessible, patients' unmet needs for healthcare have decreased, over 80% of people have access to their GP within the same or the next day, and our country is in first place in the European Union by provision of hospitals per 1 million people.

These are part of the results of a joint study by the Research Center "Trend" and the Expert Club for Economics and Politics (EKIP) on the topic of access to health care in Bulgaria.

The research is nationally representative and was conducted in the period July 5-13, 2022 among 1,005 people using the face-to-face method.

"In Bulgaria, there are 53 hospitals per 1 million people, and according to this indicator our country ranks first in the European Union", commented Arkadi Sharkov from EKIP. EU averages are roughly around 26.

According to the survey, Bulgarians mostly disapprove of additional payment for medicines (20 percent of those interviewed), with 53% seeing a serious problem with the prices for examinations. 27 percent did not have the opportunity to visit a specialist doctor due to lack of financial means, and 19 percent stopped taking medicine again due to lack of money.

Health care costs

The main dissatisfaction of patients in Bulgaria with the health care system comes from co-payments. 29% state that expensive health care is the main reason they are dissatisfied with the health care system. 14% specifically mention the high prices of medicines. 13% define the bad treatment towards them as a reason for dissatisfaction and a smaller percentage of people point to the lack of personnel, inadequate treatment, corruption, bad legislative decisions, the draining of the NHIF, etc.

In the period 2015-2019,...