Close to one in three Bulgarians are finding it difficult or very difficult to cope with health costs, one in ten have taken out loans to cover health expenditures, indicates a survey conducted by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Institute of Societies and Knowledge Studies.

More than 50 percent of health costs are covered by the patient, with the state transferring the financial burden onto the public being a lasting tendency. Close to one in four Bulgarians have no access to a doctor, a paramedic or to medicines. Cardiovascular problems and high blood pressure are no longer a health issue but a national problem, the survey reads.