State psychiatric hospital staff opposed to cutting vacant posts

Employees in state psychiatric hospitals are firmly opposed to reducing unfilled positions. On the contrary, they state that state psychiatric hospitals need additional staff positions in order to meet the requirements of modern medical standards, according to a position paper issued by the Association of Employees in State Psychiatric Hospitals in Bulgaria.

State psychiatric hospitals are inpatient mental health facilities that provide consultative, diagnostic, therapeutic, expert, inpatient and emergency psychiatric care, and serve patients with the most severe psychiatric conditions in the country, the organisation recalls. There are 12 of them nationwide, and unlike psychiatric wards in general and university hospitals and mental health centres, they operate solely within the annual budget allocated to them by the Ministry of Health.

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Also, patients are admitted there by court order for compulsory and mandatory treatment, including individuals who have committed serious offences and crimes, the organisation adds.

“The unfilled positions in our medical facilities are not ‘hidden posts’ used to calculate additional bonuses, but the result of humiliatingly low pay and a lack of interest from medical professionals,” the statement reads.

Medical staff hope that hospital managements will not be deprived of the ability to use savings to provide performance-based bonuses, as this helps support the overtime work they perform.

Over the past year, performance-based bonuses were paid only twice, each time amounting to one average monthly salary per employee (across all twelve psychiatric hospitals), the association further notes.