Sick children waited for hours to be seen in front of service offices on public holidays in different cities across the country. Queues of children with flu-like symptoms have formed in the children’s ward of hospitals in Sofia, some waiting for hours.
Doctors say that this is a standard seasonal incidence observed before the COVID-19 epidemic, but due to compliance with anti-epidemic measures, children were significantly less sick then. Currently, children are most often infected with respiratory viruses, influenza and bacterial infections.
Yambol is about to declare an epidemic due to a record number of sick children. The only pediatric ward in the district is full, and in case of complications, small patients are sent to Stara Zagora and Plovdiv.
“The research we’ve done shows that there is influenza A, there is also COVID-19,” explained Dr Nedyalka Vlahova, who works in the emergency room of Yambol General Hospital.
And queues have formed in front of pediatricians’ offices in Sofia, bTV reported.
Since Christmas, Alexandra has been looking for a doctor in the capital to visit her 5-year-old son. Christian has a high fever, cough and runny nose. Yesterday they waited three hours for an exam. Now I’m there again, but already with the research done.
“Absolutely insufficient. The general practitioner doesn’t work, maybe he works until 6pm and there’s a replacement clinic. We went there you can’t even go in, it’s full of elderly people. One pediatrician for the whole hospital. Yesterday they were there three times more people and children here,” says Alexandra Trifonova.
“People are scared and try to get their children examined as quickly as possible at the first symptoms. In most cases, this overloads the health system. My advice is: wait at least 24 hours, see how the child is doing”, recommends Dr. Diana Nencheva, specialist in childhood diseases at UMBAL “Lozenets”.
There is also a line of people waiting in front of the polyclinic in the capital’s Mladost district.
Due to the boom in respiratory viruses, parents have also reported a shortage of some liquid antibiotics for children.
