site.btaMore Unlicensed Nursing Homes Uncovered, Calls for Action Continue

Authorities have uncovered three more unlicensed nursing homes for elderly people near Varna on Tuesday. The cases are part of a larger scale investigation for illegal facilities, carried out by the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice.

Unlicensed nursing homes have been uncovered in Yagoda, Stara Zagora Region, and Varna, on the Black Sea, over the last few days. Government ministers and news media have reported awful conditions and cruel and degrading treatment of residents in such establishments, which have become popularly known as “horror homes”.

The manager of the illegal hospice in the village of Govedartsi, Western Bulgaria, uncovered on June 8, was released from custody, the Sofia District Prosecution Office told BTA. The prosecutors did not find grounds to file charges as the elderly people in the hospice were not kept there against their will, unlike the case in the village of Yagoda, Southern Bulgaria.

National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) Governor Petko Stefanovski has ordered urgent probes into suspected health insurance fraud at nursing homes in Yagoda, Varna and Govedartsi, reported the NHIF press office. The Fund will publicize the results of its probes and will refer any evidence of crime to the competent investigative authorities.

Vise President Iliana Iotova called on the state authorities to crack down on the illegal nursing homes and urged Penal Code amendments in a comment for journalists in Popovo, Northeastern Bulgaria. She said the public is waiting for answers: “Who is at the bottom of the whole organization? What links connected these homes? Who has funded all these undertakings, whose signatures are on the documents?”

In a press conference, Justice Minister Georgi Georgiev reported that in the nursing homes in Varna inspectors established violations such as poor hygiene conditions and mental health patients sharing the same room with healthy people. The residents were not provided with adequate medical care. Georgiev specified that many of the residents were without phones and ID on them.

The NGO Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC) called for amendments to the Penal Code that would introduce tight control over residential services for the elderly, as well as ban on inhumane and degrading treatment. The BHC said that the operation of such places, housing dozens of elderly people, has gone unnoticed both by local mayors and by other individuals who could have spotted irregularities. “The inspections carried out by the Executive Agency for Medical Supervision and the Agency for Social Assistance are either untimely, superficial and insufficient, or overly lenient," said the BHC.

The Ombudsman's Office said that from 2022 they have insisted on criminalizing the illegal provision of social services to the elderly and sick with changes to the Penal Code and the Social Services Act.