[size=55:1a6ln0ng]Standart 05 October 2010
Save Life and Get Fine
Doctors have their salaries cut if they do not refuse to treat extra patients
Doctors have faced a new personal dilemma - the salary or the patient. Doctors who treat patients more than the number planned by Health Fund will be sanctioned, threatened Dr Decho Dechev from St Ivan Rilski clinic.
"
I am forced to do so in order to secure the hospital survival"
.
Ten days ago the Health Fund announced the hospitals will be paid only 75% of the sums they were given the previous year. "
This means we will have to cancel planned operations to have the capacity to treat the emergency cases,"
Dr Dechev said. Other hospital principals also intend to introduce the drastic measure. The additional 65 million levs from the Ministry of Finance have not reached the clinics. The aid will hardly solve a problem because by now the hospitals' debts have swollen to half a billion levs, according to doctors.