Former Health Minister Prof. Hristo Hinkov has described as unacceptable the reported salary of around 40,000 euros for directors of state hospitals, in comments made to bTV.
He welcomed recent disclosures on high remuneration in public healthcare institutions, calling it “a very positive action” by Health Minister Katja Ivkova to make such information public.
Hinkov referred back to earlier controversies during his own tenure, including the case involving irregularities at “Pirogov” hospital, noting that the current discussion highlights deeper structural issues within the system.
Commenting on the salary disparities between hospital leadership and medical staff, he said, “This is a defect in the law. There must be a brake because these are state hospitals. This is an outrage. It shows that there are more serious violations of the law related to abuses in state hospitals. I do not know who allows these directors to take these astronomical salaries.”
The debate has also been fueled by remarks from Dr. Daniel Kiprov, a young general practitioner, who pointed to significant delays in access to salary data from the Ministry of Health and wide gaps in pay between administrative officials and frontline doctors.
