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Priced out of health: How expensive medicines are putting lives at risk

53-year-old Mariana Alexandrova lives in Sofia, Bulgaria's capital. She suffers from Type-2 diabetes and her heart is very fragile.

"I take three types of medicines for the heart, two types for the diabetes and about four more types of medicines for the other diseases," she told Euronews.

Her medicine bills can amount to up to the equivalent of €100 per month, in a country where the average monthly wage is less than €1000.

Mariana says that, although it’s a heavy financial burden, she can afford all the treatments. But as President of a patient's association, she claims that not everybody is as fortunate.

"Patients who are retired, or are only on benefits, or have a very low salary, often choose to treat only one or two diseases out of the three of four they suffer," she explained. "They often take the cheapest one for diabetes, and one or two drugs for hypertension. But all the other medicines for diabetic foot, eye, kidney, stomach or neurological diseases... they just skip them."

The problem is widespread in Bulgaria, where 19% of respondents in a recent poll said they can't afford all the medicines they need.

Patients suffering from diabetes and/or cardiovascular diseases seem particularly affected.

The head of the cardiology clinic at the National Cardiology Hospital, Borislav Georgiev, says the cost of medicines is potentially putting lives at risk.

"The problem is that if the right therapy is not implemented, the patient will not get good recovery results. We will have a recurrence of coronary problems, we will have complications, repeated heart attacks, the development of atherosclerosis in other body parts, for instance, the legs, with peripheral arterial disease, strokes and so on," Borislav explained.

Specific levels

Read more on euronews.com