Shocking stories from the Hungarian health care: bed bugs and 9 hours waiting time

As we already reported, the Hungarian health care system struggles with many problems. Even though the governmental communication emphasises that it is getting better, the general experience of the patients is the opposite. We collected some staggering recent stories which appeared in the press shocking the people.

The Hungarian health care system is behind the Albanian

Clearly, it is already a cliché that the Hungarian health care system is not working well. For example, waiting lists are long, the debts of the hospitals are gigantic, and according to an official report leaked in 2016

two-third of the hospitals should be closed because of outdated medical technology, financial shortage and the lack of qualified doctors.

In fact, they left the country and are working in Western-European countries because in Hungary they receive ridiculously low salaries.

The most critical problem is the lack of money. According to the Hungarian Medical Chamber, the Hungarian health care system needs at least 6-700 billion HUF (EUR 2.25M). In fact, the Hungarian government communicates that it spends more money on health care. Thus, salaries are increasing. In contrast, a disappointed nurse sent her last paycheck to the Hír TV which showed an unbelievable 2 HUF (EUR 0.01) net payrise.

Thus, it is not surprising that the Sweden-centred Health Consumer Powerhouse ranked the Hungarian health care system

behind the Albanian and Macedonian.

For example, RTL Klub reported that bed bugs overran the psychiatry in Budapest. What’s more, an employee said that the problem is not unique, other institutions struggle with it, as well. After RTL KLUB released its hidden camera video recorded in the institution the psychiatry announced that they realised the problem and ordered the cleaning.