Bulgaria's blood whores.

This is how the foreign press once described the Roma, lingering every day around the National Transfusion Centre. They may look like any other Roma men who roam the suburban streets of the capital, but their real purpose there is trading blood for money.

Illicit, but long tolerated, the blood whores have seen their business flourish over the last few years, but as last week showed they are  – to put it mildly – no long-term solution.

Members of Bulgaria's government were among the first to respond to an urgent call for blood donors as unusually high number of surgeries in Sofia depleted hospitals' reserves.

But this is no long-term solution either.

In a desperate bid to cope with the shortage, Bulgaria's hospitals insist that patients present a note some one has donated blood for their operation.

But this is just part of the vicious circle as patients' relatives fall an easy prey to the black market dealers.

There is only one long-term solution – offering state-fixed payments to people who voluntarily donate blood.

Legalizing the market, not the blood whores, is the only way to plug at least this bloody hole in the terminally ill system.