PRIVATE HOSPITALS to more than double in Bulgaria
Bulgaria is the most extraordinary healthcare market…
We are researching our East European private healthcare report, and have spent the last few weeks looking at Bulgaria.
It is the most extraordinary healthcare market; on the one hand, this is probably the most private healthcare friendly market in Eastern Europe, on the other, corruption is endemic.
The failure of the public sector has led to a mushrooming private sector – some 40 private hospitals and clinics have opened in the last seven years, and these numbers should soar to 100 within two years.
Like Finland, Bulgaria allows citizens to spend their compulsory state insurance on private healthcare if they wish. Like Germany or France, the state insurance fund regularly contracts out work to the private sector.
Yet isn’t hard to see why no Western private equity house has invested in private healthcare. Corruption is endemic, and many Bulgarians have been forced into dishonesty, first by communism and then by the smuggling gangs, mafia and former communists who control so much of the country today.
The informal, or ‘black’ market, in healthcare services, is estimated to be at least €500m. That is the same size as Romania’s, with a population which is a third the size.
Most of the private hospitals are tiny, with 20-40 beds, but Bulgaria also boasts the largest private hospital in the former Eastern Bloc in Tokuda (see separate interview).
What makes Bulgaria fascinating is the very real prospect of further reforms. The state social insurance fund, which is deeply inefficient, could be demonopolised, allowing big insurers to compete in a €1 billion market. And the big regional hospitals could be privatised. That depends upon a change of government this summer, but such a change looks likely, as the right wing parties are currently ahead in the polls.
This extraordinary country could become one of the most exciting private healthcare markets in Europe….
The Healthcare Europa report, covering Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Romania, Serbia, the Ukraine and Turkey, will be available at the end of February for €2,500, and will analyse the healthcare reforms in these countries, size the private sectors, look at the main players and analyse business models.
For more information, why not email me: max@healthcareeuropa.com ?