Bulgaria's Health Ministry has announced it plans to introduce standards for providing emergency medical aid, which is notorious failing to prevent numerous deaths by being slow and inadequate.

Bulgarian Health Minister Stefan Konstantinov announced Wednesday that the emergency medical teams will be required to arrive on the spot within 20 minutes after the 112 call in life-threatening cases. In non-life-threatening cases, the requirement will be 40 minutes.

The requirements are included in a National Concept for Developing Emergency Medical Aid drafted by the Health Ministry. A failure to meet the time limits will be investigated and will be pardoned only in the events of natural disasters and inclement weather.

The emergency aid concept will be adopted by the Cabinet, and will be implemented within the next 3 to 5 years.

Another major novelty in it is the inclusion of paramedics – who still technically do not exist in Bulgaria and their job is known only from American movies. They will be trained in educational institutions through 2-year courses.

The Health Ministry measures provide for a minimum monthly wages of doctors in the emergency rooms of at least BGN 720, an increase from the current minimum of BGN 630; the salary increase is supposed to help stem out the outflow of doctors from the emergency units.

A total of 6 887 medics are employed in the emergency centers around the country, while their total number is supposed to be 7 113; the remaining openings cannot be filled for lack of applicants. The average ER doctors in Bulgaria are aged between 55 and 65.

The emergency medical aid will be provided by three types of units – a doctor's unit, a paramedic unit, and a transport unit – and they will be used depending on the severity of the cases.

The emergency teams will be distributed in a new way around the country; cities of over 200 000 people will have several locations for them; temporary or permanent medical bases will be opened for faraway regions and along highways.

According to the Health Ministry, BGN 150 M are needed annually to restructure the emergency aid system, which is double the current annual budget for emergency aid.

Bulgaria currently has 28 emergency medical aid centers with 198 subdivisions, which is fewer than the total number of municipalities in the country – 264.