All posts by Stamena Manova

About Stamena Manova

Stamena Manova is a 27-year-old Journalism graduate from Bulgaria. Interested in international activities and patient rights, she handles the public relations and international communications of the Bulgarian Association for Patients Defense.

Do we have to become patients to start care about our rights?

Normally, when a person is healthy he or she is not interested in what is happening with the healthcare system. A healthy person has not encountered cases like “healthcare system – mission impossible”.

Human’s philosophy is really interesting, how it changes depending on different situations. I am watching the people around me and I see patients that have suffered, but managed to overcome their illness and have now become leaders of patients’ organisations, to fight for something better.

Is it normal to live irresponsibly your life? Yes – you may be healthy now and you do not care what is happening in your country or in the EU – but isn’t this a huge irresponsibility to your future and the future of your family and friends? Does it have to happen to you to start being interested, to start being active?

The truth is that patients have valuable experience. They have fought, and they are fighting for their health, so they know where things are not working. They have a bitter but valuable experience that can be proved to be extremely useful in the future.

But this does not mean that healthy people should not be interested or that only patients should fight for quality care. That means all of us – sick or healthy- we should be active and we must have responsibility for the future!

Why do we have to become sick to see the healthcare problems? Why do we have to suffer to form an opinion? Why am I asking these questions so late when I have already passed to the “diseased side”? Because we are people. Because we are often self-absorbed and we make mistakes, but we can also save so much bitter experience by being active.