Staying in a Bulgarian hospital

Recently I was admitted to the local hospital as an emergency patient. I don’t want to go into the reasons but thought my experience might be of interest to some of you.

Popovo is a small town so it doesn’t have a major hospital so we weren’t even sure if it had and A&E, but we turned up at 10.00pm where there was a doctor sitting outside having a coffee and a chat with the ambulance drivers. He quickly assesses what’s wrong  then tells you to either go to your doctor or to come back the next day or admits you. On being admitted I was given emergency treatment, then an ECG and taken to the ward. I was given a bed, put on a drip and soon dozed off to sleep.

The next day gave me an opportunity to take in my surroundings.  The room had a tiled floor and has been recently painted but beyond that it bore no relation to a hospital you would find in the UK.

The sheets were clean but stained and had been repaired a number of times, the mattress was just a piece of foam and the bed be itself was ancient, the head end did raise up but it took a couple of nurses to do it. There were 16 strip lights but only 5 worked and most of them were missing their cover. In  the corner there was a glass cabinet full of every drug imaginable complete with needles and syringes but there was no lock on it and the vials were just piled in tubs with the name on it. There were stocks of saline drips on a shelf along with all sorts of other medical equipment. The only electronic devices in the room were some infusers and a defibrillator. To be honest I was initially quite shocked at the state of everything.

But after a couple of days the surrounding became unimportant, I received all the care I needed and probably more, I had x-rays taken and regular ECGs but yet again the machine was ancient and wouldn’t have looked out of place in Dr. Frankenstein’s lab but it did the job.

I came to realise the surroundings aren’t important; yes they were run down but they were clean and it’s the treatment that’s the important part. The staff were great especially having to put up with my  limited Bulgarian and them not speaking any English but we managed and I am now out. On leaving they did say any problems I’m just to turn up and they will sort me out, hopefully I won’t be back but if I do need treatment again I won’t hesitate to go back.

Just in case any of you happen to end up in hospital while in Bulgaria be aware you need to supply everything yourself, that includes food, drinks even toilet roll, they will provide the medical care you  need but you need to provide the personal care, so this meant Joe having to travel back and forward with food or anything else I might need.