What impact will the new conservative government have on the Bulgarian healthcare system?

Four months ago, many hoped that the new regime would completely privatise all healthcare insurance and adopt the Dutch model of statutory insurance.

That now looks less, likely according to Renate Indjova, a former prime minister of Bulgaria who now is commercial director at Tokuda, the country’s largest private hospital: "To ask the national health insurance fund to commit harikari is asking a lot," she says.

Rather, she is 'cautiously optimistic' that the new government will introduce a proper DRG system and allow private hospitals to charge more to patients.

On the face of it, Bulgaria’s present system is very friendly to the private sector – patients have complete choice, and can go either private or public.

However, there is a strict limit on what additional sums the private sector can ask the patient to pay. Indjova hopes these limits will be raised, and expects a new minister of health to be announced by the end of July. 

She says that the recession has, so far, not had a bad impact on Tokuda, a 700 bed hospital owned by Japanese healthcare group Tokushukai Medical Corporation: "Patients continue to come to us. Yes, there has been the normal seasonal slowdown, but nothing more."

She suggests that, so far, Bulgaria’s economy, which is somewhat isolated from that of the rest of the world, has not been badly affected.