Bulgaria will spend almost half a billion euros more on health care this year, and checks on doctors and on the disability medical boards (TELK) will get tougher, prime minister Rumen Radev said. He spoke at the opening of the forum "Doctors We Trust".

The extra money will go to the health insurance fund and the national children's hospital. It will also pay for junior doctors' salaries and for their professional development. The government wants doctors to work in good, modern conditions, and wants Bulgaria to use the newest treatments, as other countries do.

Radev said health care must keep moving closer to leading standards. Hospital treatment should give more room to prevention.

He told young doctors that the state needs their knowledge, talent and energy. He said it is the state's duty to give them a chance to build a career in Bulgaria, and that it will do so.

Radev said doctors also have a mission to protect public trust. "In a society where trust keeps eroding, doctors are an extremely important pillar of trust," he said.

He said he hoped no Bulgarian doctors would be detained by the authorities. But he warned: "I can't promise you that we will turn a blind eye. The checks will become even broader."

More than 800,000 people hold a TELK decision, and Radev said the number of decisions is growing exponentially. He did not claim that people with such decisions have no real diagnosis. He said the state will invest in digital systems to remove the room for possible abuse.

Radev said health is decisive for society's development, and no national goal can be reached without it. In his words, a person needs to be healthy to work fully, with the widest possible range of mental and physical health.

At the forum, Radev gave awards to obstetrician-gynaecologists Prof Dimitar Markov and Dr Maria Yunakova, to Prof Ivan Kostov, director of the "Maichin Dom" Specialised Hospital for Active Treatment in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and to Prof Asen Nikolov, head of the delivery room at the same hospital.