Society must protect doctors so they have authority, and medics need good funding and decent working conditions, President Iliana Iotova said. She opened the "Doctor of the Year" ceremony at the National History Museum, which also marks 125 years since the Bulgarian Medical Union (BLS) was founded.
Bulgarian National Radio said in its programme today that Dr Zheni Stoichkova will speak after the 3pm news about Bulgarian Doctors' Day. She chairs the Regional Medical Chamber in Burgas. She will talk about the holiday and the calling of a doctor.
What happened before: Dr Zheni Stoichkova speaks on Bulgarian National Radio about Bulgarian Doctor's Day
"For a doctor to have authority, the whole of society must protect them. Bulgaria's security also depends on your hands," Iotova said. She called medicine the most human, most responsible and most deserving profession, and said that, unlike any other, without doctors there is no human life. One day a year for them is too little, she said.
The president said she knows the profession from her own career and her personal life. A doctor's working day is not 8 or 12 hours but sometimes 24, and it starts the evening before, with thoughts of patients. She said medics are heroes because of the conditions they work in, and they often face unfair blame.
Society needs bright examples, Iotova said, so people should talk about doctors' achievements and the high level of medicine in Bulgaria. Doctors build schools of young followers who "climb on their shoulders" to reach higher. However far new technology and artificial intelligence advance, responsibility and decisions will stay with doctors, the president added.
Iotova told health minister Katya Ivkova she is taking over a system that works in the big cities but not in small towns and villages, where hospital wards are closing. Her concern will be a fair health system and access to health care for everyone, as the Constitution requires.
The president said advanced medicine needs good funding, and she sees the finance minister's presence in the hall as a guarantee of that. "We cannot be a good society if we only ask and give nothing, and the least we can do is give you decent conditions for your work in Bulgaria," she told the medics.
BLS chair Dr Nikolay Branzalov said no one becomes a doctor alone, and behind everyone stand people who gave them a hand. Over 125 years, generations, social orders, opportunities and challenges have come and gone, but doctors' need for a professional association has remained, he said. For him, first come the doctors who created the union, defended it and passed the responsibility to the next generations.
Deputy prime minister Galab Donev, ombudsman Velislava Delcheva, the leaders of the National Health Insurance Fund (NZOK), the Bulgarian Dental Union and the Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Union, and doctors, teachers and guests were in the hall. Iotova will present the "Doctor of the Year" award later in the evening.