Bulgaria's Health Minister Resigns Unexpectedly
Health | September 29, 2010, Wednesday // 13:47| views
Bulgaria's Health Minister Anna-Maria Borisova has resigned unexpectedly, amidst heated public debates on the fate of controversial measures for health care reforms in the country.
Borisova is stepping down only a few months after she took over from her predecessor Bozhidar Nanev, who resigned at the end of March 2010 over a conflict of interest investigation.
Thus, she has become the second minister from the government of Boyko Borisov and the center-right GERB party to resign. Both resignations have been from the health minister post. The Prime Minister has accepted Borisova’s resignation.
Both Nanev, and, increasingly Borisova in the past months and weeks, have come under tremendous criticism for failing to start badly needed reforms in Bulgaria’s crumbling health care sector as the National Health Insurance Fund has had to receive additional subsidies from the state budget, and the government has discussed shutting down dozens of hospitals in small towns around the country.
In mid September, Bulgaria’s Doctors’ Union declared they will stage a national protest on October 15, 2010, demanding the resignations of the Health Minister and the Finance Minister over the troubles in the health sector.
Borisova’s resignation came several hours after she stated early Wednesday morning on TV that the fate of the controversial measure of introducing copay by insured patients for health care services, which, among others, has also stirred much criticism of the minister and the government, has not been determined yet.
Over the past few days, the opposition Socialist Part and the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) decided to initiate a no-confidence vote in the Parliament of Borisov's government because of what they have described as an overt failure to tackle the problems in the health care sector. While the vote has no chance of passing because the opposition has only about 80 votes in the 240-seat Parliament, it has drawn further attention to the health care issues.
“I don’t know, I haven’t been asked to quit, but just like any other minister who carries their resignation in their pocket, I also have mine on me. And since I don’t have a pocket, I carry my resignation in my folder,” Anna-Maria Borisova told Darik Radio about half an hour before government spokesperson Nikolay Boev announced her resignation.
Back in April 2010, Prime Minister Borisov praised her as great expert and a tough woman who can handle the severe crisis in Bulgaria’s health care sector.
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