SOFIA, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Bulgaria's Institute for Market Economics (IME) said on Thursday that the number of nurses in the country's hospitals was much lower than necessary, and proposed measures to solve this problem.
Petya Georgieva, senior economist at the IME, said at a roundtable discussion dedicated to the shortage of nurses that there were an average of 1.4 nurses per doctor in the hospitals in Bulgaria, but there were places where there were more doctors than nurses.
"It's hard to imagine how a hospital functions when doctors outnumber nurses," said Georgieva at the event, organized by her institute, which is one of the oldest independent think tanks in Bulgaria.
At the same time, one nurse cared for an average of 6.5 patients in the hospitals in Bulgaria, but there were places where one nurse was responsible for 30 patients, Georgieva said.
Lachezar Bogdanov, chief economist at the IME said that the situation was not going to change soon because the number of nursing graduates per 100,000 population in Bulgaria was about nine. "The average in the European Union (EU) is just under 40," he said.
There had to be a change, but it would be difficult, "because when you ask 15-year-olds what they see themselves doing when they are 30 years old, only 0.5 percent of Bulgarian children say they see themselves working as a nurse," Bogdanov said.
The problem was that there were many other economic sectors where they could earn much more money. "Except for culture and social work, all specialists in every other field earn more," Bogdanov said.
To address the problem, the think tank proposed 10 measures, with a significant increase in nurses' salaries at the top of the list. Doubling the money within a year or two was an ambitious but necessary goal, according to IME.
Introducing targeted measures to increase student retention rates, attracting nurses from countries outside the EU, strengthening incentives for better regional distribution of nurses, and creating a clear path for professional development were among other ideas.
"Unlike other professions, the prospects for this profession are very limited. A nurse graduates, starts working, and is left with the option of either becoming a senior nurse or staying in the same position for a very, very long time," Georgieva said.
Svetla Kostadinova, IME's executive director, summarized that the sharp increase in salaries was only to retain nurses, and possibly make some children choose the path of nursing. "That is, this is the minimum, and it must happen immediately," she said.
All the other measures were more about how, in the long term, more people would decide to be nurses, she said. ■
