Medical care

Search the existing posts - you'll find plenty of food for thought.  Frankly, if you think that the UK NHS is currently cr*p then you might want to do a LOT of research before you decide to live here....

Will do thanks

Here's a little something to add to your research into how to get good healthcare in the autumn of your days, and how not to - Mr Google will assist if you don't follow all the gory details....and don't read it just before hitting the sack! 😱

https://tinyurl.com/bty5m5pn

PS In case you're wondering, the going rate for a reasonable - but by no means luxurious - care home here in Sofia is 80 leva/day; the fancy ones run at twice that..and they're all pretty basic by what I'm led to believe are current UK standards.

That is tragic, and should never have happened. But I'm not convinced this is a uniquely Bulgarian issue. Unfortunately similar things have occured in UK "care" homes, too.

@janemulberry

I don't recall any reports from the UK of care home residents being tied up or "tortured" - the full report on TV included at least two who had to have limbs amputated due to the effects of being restrained for long periods. There have certainly been some scandals over the years in the UK, mainly in children's homes, but nothing on this scale.

There have also been additional reports today that the same people operated at least one other such establishment in another region of the country. It's a scary thought that it's apparently being going on for years.

It's crazy, how has nobody noticed that? Do Bulgarians not visit their elderly relatives?

@CarlS1986

Several people did report problems, but nothing was done about it. As a rule, elderly relatives are looked after by the family (don't ask me how I know this unless you're ready to be bored to death) but some of these old folks were suffering from dementia etc and so difficult for people who are also trying to hold down jobs and bring up a family to cope with.  These particular care homes are on the "budget side", although to many working people in Bulgaria 1,000 leva a month is a good chunk of their monthly income, so risking having them shut down means paying even more or trying to cope with a non-rational relative yourself.

I can tell you that a lot of these "hospices" do have residents who have NO visitors at all, partly because many of the residents are more or less comatose and/or wouldn't recognise family members if they were to visit. My mother-in-law is in one, and she shares a room with three old ladies, two of whom are completely out of it and another who is bright as a button but deaf as a post. Whenever I'm there I make a point of holding a "conversation" with the deaf lady, who fortunately can more or less lip-read but has no-one visiting her.  It's indeed somewhat grim in that respect but my MiL's condition is greatly improved compared to when my somewhat batty FiL was "looking after her"..

Of course, this is a truly horrendous event @JimJ. These things should never have occured anywhere, and especially allowed to get to such extreme levels.

But some rather horrible things have happened in UK care homes over the years, sadly, and even more horrible things can happen anywhere when family members are responsible for the care of vulnerable children or adults. Outright neglect can also happen in hospitals, anywhere in the world. In thirty-five years working as a nurse and midwife, I saw things that still keep me awake some nights.

Your MiL and FiL are very blessed to have you looking out for them.

@janemulberry

Yeah, I know about the various scandals in the UK - and was involved in several of them when I worked in the Social Services Inspectorate before it was transformed into the rather more innocuously-named Care Quality Commission.

😎

There wasn't really anything on quite the same scale as the BG efforts in the past or indeed now, though..

And I think that Lucy Letby WAS stitched up, if you were wondering.

This does sound like a particularly nasty case, agreed. Unfortunately there are plenty of dreadful things that never come out as open scandals but are hushed up within the system. I am glad this one was exposed, so the residents could be rescued.

Re LL -- I don't know every detail of the case, but it seems to me her legal representation was rather remiss in not including any nurse expert witness. It appears it wasn't made clear that her keeping notes about patients and pondering whether she was in any way responsible or could have prevented a death is good reflective practice, something the UK Nursing and Midwifery Council requires every registered nurse to do regularly (though few do it at all. and even fewer do it properly), rather than evidence of guilt!

And I do know from my own experience that it's very possible for individual nurses or midwives to be present at a statistically high number of deaths, though they are in no way responsible. Working permanent nights, being the one who is always allocated the sickest patients no one else wants to look after, just sheer bad luck... It drove me out of midwifery and into a job where there'd be absolutely no sick babies, in the end.

@JimJ

Thanks for explaining Jim,

It is rather sad to hear about, but I guess because I haven't been involved with that area a life yet, I'm just ignorant to it.

Give yourself a pat on the back for trying to hold a conversation with the deaf lady, that is genuinely something nice to do, I would hope it brightens her day just that bit more, I enjoy your post on here with your experiences Jim, they are good to read, although sometimes I don't think others are not so fond of your replies 😂.

@CarlS1986

Everyone has different experiences and different perceptions; I don't claim that mine are necessarily more real/genuine than anyone else's but, in my view, being part of a Bulgarian family and speaking the language reasonably well does give one a better perspective and a deeper understanding of what life here is all about.  I hail from this neck of the woods anyway, so I have a good head start in understanding how things work in the Balkans and the underlying history and culture...

The key takeaway here for me is the need to be prepared and have a plan for how we might manage needing extra support and health care as we age.

This is important no matter where we retire to, but as @JimJ points out, it's even more important in Bulgaria, especially for those of us who don't speak Bulgarian well (or at all!) and aren't as well informed about how things work in Bulgaria.

Something that's essential to consider, for sure.

@janemulberry

Amen to that! Even my wife is learning a lot from our experiences as we navigate the rocky straits of Bulgarian bureaucracy and seemingly-crazy rules regarding who's allowed to be "sick", what that actually means - and how long they're allowed to take to become "well" again 😆

@Ant64

I'm old and my dad is really old, and we've had excellent experiences with Bulgarian healthcare.

However, I suggest it's very important to be in the Bulgarian public health system (NHIF) by either making monthly contributions (e.g. unemployed 40 lv) or having an S1 (e.g. as a UK/EU pensioner).

I also suggest that your experience will be very different if use private hospitals/clinics that are affiliated with NHIF rather than public hospitals. This allows you to get private hospital treatment whenever you want it at a small private surcharge (i.e. they get the standard NHIF reimbursement). We're in Plovdiv, and (public) St. George is massive and absolutely packed whenever I see it (and a bit old and tatty, even after extensive renovation works). Pulmed, Medline, Kaspela (and a bunch of others I didn't try) are quiet and shiny, and about as relaxing as hospital visits can get.

Your experience will also be very different if you maintain proper private medical insurance (similar to BUPA, etc.). This is cheaper in Bulgaria than other countries, but it's still a pricey option, especially as you get older / have more pre-existing conditions to disclose.

I'm not sure I'm looking forward to a Bulgarian care home, I reckon I'll try to avoid that. :-) My dad has a live-in carer from a care agency and I pay 65 lv per day.