Abstract
The poor and deteriorating health status of Bulgaria’s population at the beginning of the 1990s, together with the democratic changes in the country, resulted in the recognition of the need for fundamental changes to the health system. The Bulgarian health system suffered from a number of structural weaknesses, including: an orientation towards supply rather than demand; an inefficient utilization of human, material, and technical resources; health inequalities; and poor quality of medical care. Even before the democratic changes in 1989 it became apparent that the health system was unable to meet the needs of the population. In particular, the health system failed to respond to the epidemiological transition of the population, with very high cardiovascular mortality and largely stagnating life expectancy throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
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© 2012 Antoniya Dimova, Maria Rohova, Miroslav Popov, and Bernd Rechel
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Dimova, A., Rohova, M., Popov, M., Rechel, B. (2012). Health Reform in Bulgaria. In: Bartlett, W., Božikov, J., Rechel, B. (eds) Health Reforms in South East Europe. New Perspectives on South-East Europe Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137264770_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137264770_3
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