Public healthcare is much less rosy in Hungary than in Europe
As Napi.hu reports, Hungary is undoubtedly among the European countries that have not done well in the recent research concerning public healthcare. In fact, out of the 35 countries, there were hardly any participants who performed worse than Hungary. As the 2017 report of the Euro Health Consumer Index (EHCI) points out, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic could successfully catch up with the leading countries that are still the Netherlands and Switzerland, but there are still several countries where the healthcare system has not improved. Here are the results of the research.
Without a doubt, Hungary lags behind other European countries as far as public healthcare is concerned, demonstrates the EHCI’s latest study. It is only Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Lithuania that produce worse results. However, compared to the previous year, changes occurred. For instance, Poland, which was far behind Hungary last year, caught up with Hungary and now both of them reached a total of 584 points out of the maximum 1,000. This still falls short of the results of the top 3 countries, which are the Netherlands with 924 points, Switzerland with 898 points and Denmark with 864 points.
The “800 Club”, comprising countries scoring more than 800 points out of the maximum, has extended its membership since 9 further countries, like Norway, Luxembourg and Finland, also joined the group.
This also means that altogether 12 Western European countries belong to this elite spending the most money on the public healthcare system. The amount of money devoted to public healthcare is clearly shown by the fact that right after this club, an enormous gap can be seen. The 1st country after the “800 Club” is Slovakia with 749 points, but Slovenia and the Czech Republic are only a bit behind. This indicates that more financial support provides better healthcare and treatment, reports Healthpowerhouse.com.
/healthpowerhouse.com/As the report goes on, European healthcare has improved a lot since the survival rates of infant mortality, stroke, cancer and heart diseases are much better. Patients can choose from a variety of treatments, and more emphasis is put on their involvement in the therapies.
At the same time, there is a lot to learn from the leaders, like from the Netherlands and Switzerland, but Finland, Slovakia, Montenegro and Macedonia also set good examples.
The EHCI research started in 2005 with the aim of analysing the system of healthcare in 35 European countries with the help of 6 evaluation areas and 46 indicators. Their major sub-disciplines are:
- patient rights and all the information given to them
- the availability of the necessary treatment
- the efficiency and quality of the treatment
- prevention and pharmaceuticals provided.
In the 2017 report, Cyprus scored 0 points as it does not have a public healthcare system. The following map shows the current situation of the public healthcare system in each European country. Countries achieving more than 800 points are indicated with green, those scoring less than 600 are coloured with red while yellow shows countries with results between the two categories.
/healthpowerhouse.com/What might explain the prominent leading position of the Netherlands is that they invest a lot of money in healthcare. As far as decision-making is concerned, they involve experts and patients’ associations while politicians and bureaucrats are kept away from it.
In the report, Hungary is mentioned together with Poland as both of them achieved 584 points and therefore, they share the 29th place. The researchers of the index explain the poor performance of the countries with the fact that if the management constantly focuses on other things rather than intending to produce the best, the quality of services will decline.
The research also mentions, that in recent years, the governments of the 2 countries have rather focused on restricting free press and keeping the migrants away from the country which can be the reason why only little improvement has been experienced in healthcare.
Therefore, there is a lot to improve in the country, and both the Hungarian healthcare system and the people deserve more.
Source: napi.hu
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2 Comments
I do not know how EHCI has gathered this information, but as a Dutchman I can tell you that:
1 / the waiting lists for medical treatment in the Netherlands are unacceptably long. This cause unnecessary long pain and even lead to the death of patients;
2 / the healthcare industry is full of ex-politicians who are members in boards of directors, supervisory directorships etc. for a generous fee which has a huge cost-increasing effect;
3 / wrong diagnoses are made;
4 / the number of health insurers in the Netherlands is huge! There are 4 major health insurers and each of them have various subsidiaries in order to promote ‘competition’. In reality, every subsidiary has offices, management, administration, etc. and there is little or no ‘competition’.
5 / The Netherlands is overwhelmed by incorrect declarations from health care providers. Not only the amounts are incorrect, treatments are also placed on the invoice that have never been executed.
6 / Checking the declarations is not or hardly taking place and the health insurer says that this is a task for the patient to check whether the declaration (which the patient never sees!) is correct. The declarations are paid blindly.
7 / In the last century there were two systems in the Netherlands: Health insurance and private health insurance. The income was the basis for this split. At that time, almost all medical treatments and medicines were reimbursed and the healthcare premium was acceptable until it was decided to merge these systems into one type of health insurance. It was stated explicitly that ‘the market would do its job’ and that competition would reduce the premiums would be acceptable or even at a lower level. The market has done its destructive work, the premiums are rising every year, the fees for medical treatments and medicines have been reduced and sometimes abolished. There is also an ‘own risk’ introduced that will be increased every year.
Why: ‘The amount of money devoted to public healthcare is clearly shown by the fact that this is the right after this club’. No, it only shows that the medical industry is full of fraud. Here is another typical example of how the EU provides disinformation. Please do not believe everything that Brussels is telling you!
In addition:
EHCI apparently does not want to know anything about the success of medical tourism to countries like Hungary. This aspect is very successful and attracts more and more patients from other countries all over the world to Budapest for example. Don’t they want to take note of this?
EHCI apparently knows nothing of the high level of medical education in Hungary, the very high level of care and attention to the patients by the nursing staff.
EHCI apparently knows nothing about the existence of two world-famous and leading universities in Hungary, in Debrecen and Budapest.
EHCI appears never to have heard of the existence of a binding EU-Directive that had to be introduced in the health care legislation in all EU-Member States. This Directive allows EU-residents to decide for themselves in which other EU-Member State they want to be treated. The only condition is the waitinglist and the fact that reimbursement of a treatment never will be higher than used in the country of origin of the patient. See: https://ec.europa.eu/health/cross_border_care/overview_en
EHCI seems to work with the concept ‘how do you want to receive the results’? The EU-Commission orders this research, pays it but wishes to receive a result that will satisfy them, even if the result has to be adjusted. (Manipulated!)
It seems that the countries belonging to the Visegrád-group are deliberately low-ranked as a punishment for their refusal to follow the dictations from Brussels, Berlin and Paris. It also seems that EU officials (unhelpful unprofitable persons) in Brussels have bent themselves over yet another contentless theme and they did not want to present the truth. It is unfortunate for them that there are people who follow things in an attempt to adjust the result and inform EU-habitants in a proper way.