The protest of Bulgarian general practitioners (GPs) is to grow further on Thursday as ten more regions will join in it.

The protest began on Monday when GPs from four regions closed their surgeries. It spread on Tuesday and Wednesday, with respectively five and nine other regions joining.

GPs from Blagoevgrad, Varna, Vratsa, Gabrovo, Kardzhali, Montana, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sofia and Shumen are to join the protest on Thursday.

The protest is foreseen to spread gradually across Bulgaria until it encompasses the entire territory of the country.

A meeting between the leadership of the Association of general practitioners in Bulgaria and Health Minister Petar Moskov on Wednesday did not yield any results, with the GPs saying that they will not back down from their demands and the protest will continue.

They have assured that one medical crew in each practice will remain on duty in order to take care of patients in need of acute medical help.

GPs are discontent with the policies and reforms proposed by Moskov, especially those concerning the outside hospital healthcare.

In particular, they are disgruntled that out of the BGN 36 M foreseen for outside hospital healthcare, only BGN 2 M will be allocated to them.

The protesters are also against the introduction of fingerprint identification at hospitals, pharmacies and polyclinics.

Earlier on Wednesday, Moskov said that the ministry had already considered some of the demands of the association and is taking measures to address them.

GPs are supported by private and municipal hospitals as well as the leadership of the Bulgarian Doctors' Union, with the latter announcing that a nation-wide protest is being prepared for April 6.

The national protest will take place on the eve of the professional holiday of doctors in front of the building of the Council of Ministers under the slogan “Genuine reform for genuine medicine”.

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