Parliament has voted down changes to the Health Establishments Act that would have set a legal minimum wage for staff in state and municipal hospitals. The changes, proposed by We Continue the Change (PP), failed at first reading. They failed again in a re-vote that PP's Venko Sabrutev asked for.

In the re-vote, 60 MPs voted for the bill, 4 against and 116 abstained.

The minimum wages would also have covered emergency care centres, blood transfusion centres, cancer and dialysis centres, psychiatric hospitals and hospitals run by government departments. Part of the pay would have depended on ongoing training and extra qualifications. A hospital paying below the minimum could have lost its contract with the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), and its managers could have been fined.

Sabrutev linked the vote to World Day for Decent Work, 7 October. He said only the ruling parties oppose decent pay for Bulgarian doctors, nurses and other medical staff.

Yulian Dimitrov of Progressive Bulgaria said hospitals operate as commercial companies and public enterprises, so their funding must be tied to a specific task and method. He said a law cannot set minimum wages and then punish hospitals for not paying them. Dimitrov said the bill brings new costs with no sure income, and without extra money it will lead to debts and bankruptcies. He added that his party backs no corrupt schemes.

Georgi Georgiev of Revival asked whether Progressive Bulgaria will change the current model, which he said drains the NHIF and stops medics from getting decent pay. If the ruling parties say they cannot act because it would be unregulated financial aid, they are keeping the same corrupt model, Georgiev said. "The fact that this unregulated activity was uncovered in Plovdiv shows we are plugging the leaks," Dimitrov replied.

Georgi Petrov of Progressive Bulgaria said his party will not back the bill, but not because it does not want nurses to earn more. He said there is already a way to do this, and nurses will soon see a difference in their pay. PP's Velislav Velichkov replied that the bill contains exactly such a way, and called on the ruling parties to show theirs. "You say: 'We have one.' Well, then, hand it over," Velichkov said.

Nikolay Denkov, a We Continue the Change MP, said there are separate funds hospitals can get money from. He criticised the ruling parties for having no proposal of their own to solve the problem.

Democratic Bulgaria backed the bill. Alexander Simidchiev said the loss of specialists from the system threatens the whole of healthcare. He warned that small hospitals would be at risk if the changes were passed as submitted. But between first and second reading the texts could be reworked so that they work, he said.

Luchezar Ivanov of GERB-SDS said it makes sense for the health and education ministries to pay for the training of young doctors and trainee specialists, rather than the NHIF. He said the system should be built on, not patched with fixes to earlier fixes.