The executive agency “Medical Supervision” checks the functioning of emergency medical care. The subject of the check is staffing, funding, the availability of ambulances and equipment, of emergency departments, the functioning of the national emergency call system 112, compliance with the medical standard in emergency medicine, access to medical assistance in remote settlements, etc. This was announced by the director of the “Medical Supervision” agency, Ivanka Dineva, during a discussion on the state of emergency medical assistance, organized by the Medical Federation of CT “Support”.
An analysis of the task is expected to be prepared by March 31. The inspection comes after last week’s scandalous case in which a woman died in a taxi on the way to hospital after being refused an ambulance by an emergency dispatcher in Sliven.
According to Dineva, uniform standards should be established so that it is clear in what cases patients can turn to emergency medical care centers (EMS).
According to her, the most frequent violations of the standard for emergency medical care are the improper conduct of triage by the dispatch team. In addition, non-urgent states are allowed to be served and there is untimely execution of signals. Emergency centers do not have up-to-date information on where and what free beds are available in hospitals, and therefore fatal accidents occur due to ambulances going around. Another omission is that patient examinations are not recorded in journals and slips are not filled out.
Dineva outlined as a problem the fact that the emergency vehicle fleet is in a “pretty miserable condition” and a large part is over 300,000 km with more than 7 years of service life.
During the forum, the EMTs raised a number of demands, including a change in job category, salary increase, night work allowance, additional food vouchers, improvement of uniforms and clothing.
According to a survey in the structures of KT “Podkrepa” in Emergency assistance in the country, the pay does not correspond to the mental and physical workload. Non-emergency calls and aggression towards EMS are other work problems noted by workers. Labor categorization is also an important issue according to EMTs, as they are wherever there is an emergency.
“When we go to an accident, we find firefighters and policemen who are well-dressed and are in the first category of work. Only the people from the Ambulance are in the third category of work,” commented Georgi Batakchiev from the Center for Emergency Medical Assistance in Plovdiv.
As a problem, Batakchiev highlighted the need for the ambulance driver to be involved in removing patients from their homes. “Every second and third driver has a disc herniation, and when they get sick, they usually write their request to leave, claims the trade unionist. We do not implement rehabilitation programs in case of “burnout”. Patients also seek emergency help for health problems, which are usually for consultation with a personal physician”, Batakchiev also stated.
According to him, aggression against his colleagues is not properly punished, which undermines the authority of medical work and young doctors do not want to be part of the Emergency Aid system.
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