Nearly 7,000 people in Bulgaria die annually because of poor-quality health services, according to a survey conducted under a project entitled "Improvement of Practices Related to Hospital Treatment Referrals by Off-Hospital Care," BTA reported.

The survey was presented Tuesday at a final project workshop by James Cercone of Sanigest, the firm implementing the projects. The participants in the meeting included National Health Insurance Fund Director Roumyana Todorova, hospital directors and representatives of hospital associations.

Of a total of 21,095 deaths in 2007, 6,954 or 33 per cent were preventable, the survey found. The preventable death rate in Bulgaria is 112 per 100,000 population, compared to 50-75 per 100,000 in the best performing countries.

Hospital spending rose between 2001 and 2007, outrunning GDP growth in a ratio of 9 to 1, according to the survey. The average expenditure per hospitalization tended up from some 106 leva in 2000 to nearly 443 leva in 2007.

An average one in five Bulgarians was hospitalized last year. Hospitalizations in this country exceeded the EU average in 2004 and now far outnumber those in the rest of Central and Eastern Europe. A household survey showed, however, that people are getting ever healthier and the hospitalization rate declined from some 10 per cent to slightly over 6 per cent.

A substantial portion of hospitalizations are practically inessential and result from demand induced by patients themselves.

The survey found that general practices have a limited capacity: merely 70.9 per cent of cases are resolved at the level of primary health care.