Nearly €1.19m from Bulgaria's recovery and resilience plan has gone to repair, expand and equip the psychiatric unit at the Dr Georgi Stranski university hospital in Pleven. Health minister Katya Ivkova toured it before its official opening.

The psychiatry clinics received 620 items of medical and non-medical equipment and furniture. The aim is to help patients recover and give staff a better place to work.

In all, the hospital has more than €17.6m from the plan. Ivkova also visited the other two projects. A high-tech stroke treatment centre is being built there with €10.2m. Another €6.26m is for upgrading cancer treatment, including a new linear accelerator and the infrastructure for it.

The minister also visited the Medical University in Pleven, where she saw new research by its lecturers and talked with students from several health fields. They discussed job prospects in Bulgaria and why teamwork between different medical specialists matters.

Ivkova told the future doctors, nurses and midwives that they should start learning now to listen to each other, trust each other and respect their colleagues' work. Many of them will work together in the operating theatre, the emergency department and at the patient's bedside.

Health minister Katya Ivkova toured the renovated wards and new equipment at the Burgas university hospital in October. The repairs were paid for with money from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, Burgas municipality, the hospital's budget and donations.

"Because the patient doesn't care who did more work - they rely on the whole team," the minister said.