site.btaSofia's Pirogov Emergency Hospital Marks Its 125th Birthday

The Red Cross Hospital, to which Sofia's Pirogov Emergency Hospital traces its beginnings, was established in the capital city 125 years ago on Thursday, on November 20, 1900.

On May 28, 1900, the General Meeting of the Bulgarian Red Cross Society (BRCS) resolved on the opening of a small six-bed hospital (infirmary) as a training facility for schoolgirls attending the country's first Nurses School. The hospital was housed in a building constructed in 1893 as a Red Cross storehouse. 

Under an April 25, 1906 resolution of the BRCS General Meeting, a new building for the hospital went under construction in 1907 and was finished on September 15, 1909. It was designed by architects Georgi Fingov and Kiro Marichkov. The building was consecrated on June 6, 1910. It had 60 beds on three floors. Bulgaria's first X-ray machine was installed there in 1915. In 1945 the Red Cross Hospital was reorganized as Bulgaria's principal emergency medical care facility. On the eve of World War II, the Red Cross Hospital already had 40 beds. At the end of 1950, it was turned into a Red Cross Emergency City Hospital, and on November 30, 1951 it became an Emergency Medical Care Institute and was named after famous Russian surgeon Nikolay I. Pirogov, who took part in the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War that resulted in Bulgaria's liberation from Ottoman rule.

The hospital's main 11-floor building, designed by Hristina Nikolova, was completed in 1963-1964. Its compound now occupies 24,000 sq m. In 1970 the Institute was placed under the direct jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Health. By a Council of Ministers decision of September 17, 2001, Pirogov acquired the status of a university general hospital for active treatment and emergency medicine.

The hospital has 795 beds and records 3,520 patient admissions monthly. The annual figure is over 40,000 for in-patients and some 300,000 for out-patients. Pirogov handles more than 85% of the emergency cases in the city, plus injuries in serious accidents and disasters from all over the country. Some 35,000 medium and major surgical interventions are performed annually (85-100 daily) in the hospital. Of these, between 20 and 45% are non-emergency. The total annual number of examinations, tests, procedures and surgical operations is over 1.4 million.

The hospital has 25 operating theatres which can function round the clock. It employs 362 resident doctors and 1,025 medical specialists. Pirogov's 20 clinics and 11 stand-alone wards specialize in neurosurgery, general surgery, pediatric surgery, pediatrics, orthopedic traumatology, septic surgery, hand surgery, pediatric anesthesiology and active treatment, neurology, facial cranial surgery, general and clinical pathology, anesthesiology and intensive care, toxicology, internal diseases, cardiology, urology, diagnostic imaging, burns and plastic surgery, gastroenterology, ophthalmology, forensic medicine, vascular surgery, dialysis, otorhinolaryngology, and physical therapy and rehabilitation.  

No patient coming to the hospital is turned back.