Sofia: 94-year-old waits seven and a half hours for check-up at Pirogov
The wheelchair-bound patient waited alongside about 25 others outside the septic surgery clinic. The health ministry is looking into the case.
Archive image · Photo: Bin im Garten / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped and resized)
A 94-year-old woman waited about seven and a half hours to be examined at the emergency room of the septic surgery clinic at Pirogov emergency hospital, BNT reported following a viewer tip-off. The woman, who uses a wheelchair, had a bleeding wound on her leg. An ambulance first took her to St Ekaterina hospital over a suspected vein inflammation; doctors there found an infected wound and referred her on. When her relatives arrived at Pirogov at around 9 a.m. the next morning, about 25 patients were already waiting.
Around the fifth hour the woman said she could not bear it any longer and wanted to leave, a relative recounted. The health ministry is looking into the case. Pirogov said all hospitals with a registered surgery unit may treat such wounds, and that its clinic also takes patients from other Sofia hospitals and from across the country, putting heavy pressure on staff. According to the ministry, 30 facilities in Sofia work under a clinical pathway that includes this treatment.