Bulgaria's Tourism Shifts Toward Experience-Focused Stays as Demand Grows
Tourism in Bulgaria is increasingly shifting from traditional hotel stays to more experience-focused offerings
Do you remember the controversy that BBC triggered last year after filming the dying moments of a terminally-ill man whose family agreed for the death to be captured on camera?
I remembered it yesterday as I watched the body of a dear friend of mine, who has been battling cancer for three years with the utmost courage and patience, gives up its fight for survival.
I have been there before – my father died of cancer five years ago. But it seems that he was a truly lucky man – died pretty fast at home, surrounded by the family.
My friend, it seems, was born under crossed stars. Due to specifics of her illness and the spreads that she has, death is a prolonged and painful process, while the need for medical and psychological help is critical.
The BBC series, which included footage of the cancer patient death, angered some people, but the producers said they wanted to tackle the difficult subject.
Since talking openly and intelligently about such difficult subjects as the end of life and life-threatening diseases is rare in Bulgaria due to some inner backwardness, we have more prosaic problems to solve.
"It seems like the nightmare is just starting," my friend told me yesterday, her lips breaking into a forced smile.
The situation we found ourselves trapped in would have been funny if it was not heart-breaking.
As her body started to gradually switch off, she was checked into hospital. But as there were no vacant beds in the oncology ward, she was hospitalized in the internal diseases unit. There however she was no longer classified as a cancer patient, just someone needing life support.
A hopeless case, she ended up belonging nowhere. Not because the doctors and nurses, overwhelmed by the workload on their hands, did not want to help her. Just because the way the system works is a killer, literally.
After some personal intervention and insistent talks, she was prescribed what she needed to alleviate the pain and the nausea that the final stage of the disease brings. With the help of her sister – a pharmacist – we provided what was needed urgently.
Now there is just one "minor" issue to solve – getting a permission to administer medicines for a cancer patient in a non-oncology ward. This seems to be against the rules, set by the Big Brother watching - the National Health Insurance Fund.
Funny, isn't it? Red tape makes palliative care close to non-existent in Bulgaria, at least in the form the civilized world knows it.
Faced with the harsh reality, many people find themselves turning into vocal supporters of euthanasia. Even I imagined how I will stay at her bedside until she dies from a mixture of drugs taken to end her life.
I am not sure whether the prescribed medication would ease her suffering, but can tell you that seeing someone care for her made her feel a tad better.
Yes, cancer patients do need to talk to someone even when the body has already given up the fight, they do need to know what is in store in the next few days, do need psychological support and counseling what can be done to alleviate the pain and suffering.
It is not like cutting off some tape with some scissors, for good or bad.
May be nature gives us one last chance to bid a longer farewell and get inspiration from the strength of the most vulnerable among us.
Let's not ruin it.
If we look at history, there are not many cases in which relations between Bulgaria and Russia at the state level were as bad as they are at the moment.
The term “Iron Curtain” was not coined by Winston Churchill, but it was he who turned it into one of the symbols of the latter part of the twentieth century by using it in his famous Fulton speech of 1946.
Hardly anything could be said in defense of the new government's ideological profile, which is quite blurry; at the same time much can be disputed about its future "pro-European" stance.
Look who is lurking again behind the corner – the tandem of Advent International and Deutsche Bank, respectively the buyer of the Bulgarian Telecom Company in 2004 and the advisor of the Bulgarian government in the sweetest deal of the past decade, seem t
We have seen many times this circus which is being played out during the entire week and it only shows one thing - there is no need of a caretaker government in Bulgaria.
You have certainly noticed how many times President Rosen Plevneliev used the phrase “a broad-minded person” referring to almost every member of his caretaker government.
Bulgaria's Perperikon: A European Counterpart to Peru's Machu Picchu
Bulgarians Among EU's Least Frequent Vacationers, Struggling with Affordability