The most serious shortage among medical professionals is the lack of 17,000 nurses, Ralitsa Simeonova-Ganeva, a member of the Bulgarian Council for Economic Analyses, told journalists. There is no district in Bulgaria where there are enough nurses. There is a shortage of more than 2,500 nurses in Sofia and more than 1,400 nurses in Plovdiv. At regional level, the shortages are much more acute. There is also a shortage of midwives, general practitioners and psychiatrists, the study shows. In 2022, one fifth of practitioners were aged 65 and over and the problem is about to get worse, said the National Statistical Institute.

Among the measures proposed by the experts are significant investment in medical education, attracting Bulgarians working abroad or Bulgarians who studied medicine abroad, attracting foreign citizens who studied medicine in Bulgaria, good working conditions and decent pay.