Bulgarian general practitioners (GPs) decided at their meeting in Veliko Tarnovo on Saturday to end the protest they have been staging since the beginning of the week on Monday.

However they will remain in readiness to protest, with each doctor to decide on his/her own whether to join the national protest scheduled to take part on Wednesday.

This was announced in a letter addressed to the prime minister, health minister, parliamentary health committee, the National Health Insurance Fund (NZOK) and the doctors’ union.

The GPs explain that their decision to end the protest is out of concern for the patients as they do not want to turn them into hostages of the problems in the health system.

They appreciate the agreement reached at the meeting in the health ministry held on Wednesday and identify it as a good starting point for an important dialogue on the necessary changes to the outside hospital healthcare.

Starting on Monday, GPs have been protesting against the policies of the health ministry and the reforms proposed by Health Minister Petar Moskov.

They were particularly discontent that out of the BGN 36 M foreseen for outside hospital healthcare, only BGN 2 M will be allocated to them.

The GPs were also against the proposed introduction of fingerprint identification at hospitals, pharmacies and polyclinics.

Their protest started in four regions and gradually spread to encompass all 28 regions of the country.