Heart and Brain Hospital in Burgas has issued a statement on a patient whose case drew wide attention on Facebook on Friday. Hospital management says the woman's condition was not an emergency and that she chose to leave rather than stay for treatment.

On 22 October the patient arrived as an emergency, brought in by an ambulance crew. She was seen at once, two specialists from different fields gave their opinions, and all the tests she needed were done.

Her medical team offered to keep her in hospital for more tests and observation. Every patient has the right to refuse, management says.

Her family received a detailed explanation of how the care is paid for. The hospital says that when she left, the woman had unpaid bills for services on the price list that the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) does not cover. It says this is the second such case involving her in a year. In May she also did not pay for tests that fall outside NHIF funding.

Arriving by ambulance does not automatically mean the fund pays for everything done afterwards, the hospital says. What the NHIF covers depends on the type of care given and on the rules for funding it. These are set by law and are not a rule of Heart and Brain, it says.

Management says that as a rule it would not make such details public because of its patients, but it had to, as the name of the hospital and its doctors has been affected. "The emotional story deserves to be heard, but so do the facts and the evidence," the statement says.

Doctors take on serious cases around the clock, save lives and spend time away from their own families, management adds. It wants their side heard too, and says it respects the woman and her family.

"Today the name of our hospital is called into question, tomorrow it will be another's, and the work of medical staff deserves a fair judgment," the hospital adds. Management says the team did its job and made an effort to improve the patient's condition, and that it is grateful to the doctors. The hospital wished the woman good health and a quick recovery.

The hospital has round-the-clock cardiac surgery and thoracic surgery, meaning operations on the heart and chest at any time. Management says this is often the main reason patients from the region choose it.