The Bulgarian doctors' union will stage a national protest in the centre of the Bulgarian capital on Wednesday.

The protest will begin at 15 o'clock EET and will take place in the area between the buildings of the Council of Ministers, the presidency and the parliament.

The protest will be held under the slogan “genuine reform for a genuine medicine”.

Groups of protesters are expected to arrive with organised transport from different parts of the country.

A small group of citizens is expected to demand the resignation of Health Minister Petar Moskov.

Doctors have been expressing their discontent with the policies of the health ministry and the reforms proposed by Moskov in the past several days.

A protest of general practitioners (GPs) spread gradually across the country last week before they decided to end it starting from Monday.

However a protest of doctors from private hospitals began on Monday.

Doctors have been disgruntled after the National Health Insurance Fund (NZOK) and the health ministry ignored their opinion when devising the framework agreement on the expenditure of public funds for healthcare.

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

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

However there has been division among doctors, with some of them not supporting the protests of their colleagues.

Wednesday's national protest is not backed by emergency doctors and university and state hospitals.

The emergency medical service was also against last week's protest of GPs as all patients were redirected to the emergency departments.