The hearing of the caretaker Minister of Health Dr. Stoycho Katsarov in the National Assembly has begun. The topic of the hearing is the measures taken by the Ministry of Health to overcome the problems in the management of medical institutions, which have been widely discussed recently.
The subject of discussion is also the vaccination campaign against COVID-19 and the readiness of the health system to deal with a new wave of SARS-CoV-2. In the plenary hall, Dr. Katsarov said:
“The vaccination plan was adopted at the end of last year in 4 phases. Mid-February was terminated without any being implemented.”
He specified that the first phase provided for the vaccination of the medics, of whom 50 thousand people were vaccinated. Of the 113 people who have the opportunity to be immunized, 30 and several thousand have been vaccinated in phase 2. On February 8, the plan was terminated and all groups were given the opportunity to be vaccinated. The minister said:
“The first big mistake made in the vaccination plan was related to the negotiation of vaccines.”
Bulgaria has given priority to AstraZeneca, while other substances have been left behind. Thus, a little over 30 thousand people were placed in January, because our country is left without enough preparations.
The second mistake is related to the choice of priorities. Bulgaria does not give a chance to the elderly and those with concomitant diseases. These people are placed in 4th place. Most of the dead were elderly people, and such a mistake cost about 10,000 deaths, which could have been saved in the second wave.
The third mistake is the poor logistics, Minister Stoycho Katsarov is categorical. According to him:
“The claim of how bad things have become since May 10 is incorrect, the opposite has happened. I don’t need to take out any dividends. Like you, I am worried that Bulgaria is in last place in terms of vaccination.”
The caretaker Minister stated before the National Assembly of Bulgaria that:
“Due to the lack of a good information campaign, a gap was created in the beginning, which allowed a negative attitude towards vaccines to spread after the population. Once these attitudes are created, it becomes very difficult to overcome them at the moment.”
Katsarov expressed hope that the new cabinet would take the topic of vaccination seriously, “and not look at the Minister of Health”, as the problem is not with one person or government, but with all people, the whole society.
For 2020, the total mortality rate in Bulgaria is 17.8 per 1,000. For the last year, life expectancy has decreased by a year and a half. 26,000 people have died in 6 months compared to the same period in recent years, said Dr. Katsarov. He added:
“That’s why we made an assessment of the resources and made a plan that is based on assumptions about what could happen if the number of patients increases. This will put an end to bad practices being announced from the evening for the next day closing of businesses and units.”
A plan for filling beds in hospitals is currently being discussed, the caretaker minister explained. A protocol for inpatient and outpatient care has been developed, and we have launched a public procurement procedure for drugs that have run out and were needed in the treatment of coronavirus.
A procedure has been launched to support health facilities for the repair of COVID wards and their equipment, the purchase of a prosecutor’s office, and everything related to the treatment of the infection. BGN 130,000 will be paid for this purpose.
The plan is for each minister to add what he thinks is good to do in his field and for the program to start automatically. The idea is to start the process as soon as some places need support, not to decide on the go.
The main concerns in the next pandemic wave in terms of reducing the scale of risks to the economy and the number of deaths – vaccination, poor governance, extremely poor condition of the “severely unbalanced health system” in our country. It has been poorly structured and poorly funded for years, and it is difficult to fix this for months.
If the process is not accelerated in the summer window, we will not have a good basis, it is 100% certain that the number of infected will not be small. The fact is, however, that COVID-19 is a reason to hurry with the reforms.
Katsarov was asked if vaccines are so safe, as mortality is not completely reduced in countries that are much more disciplined than us. He said that we do not have any other mechanism at the moment and although it has not been completely eliminated, mortality has been greatly reduced in countries that have immunized a large percentage of their population.
