Hundreds of Hungarian dentists go on strike

From today until September 13, most of the dental surgeries offering free service will be closed. More than a thousand dentists are going to protest for higher state support because, in the current financial framework, they cannot run their surgery securely and calculably.

The dentists who go on strike will provide only duty and emergency services. Therefore, those who do not fall into these two categories do better if they book an appointment with a private dentist – 24.hu reported.

According to the news portal, Hungarian dentists struggle with a lot of problems, of which only the most serious one is that they do not receive enough financial support from the state to run their surgeries safely. This is why it is hard to substitute the dentists in some places if they want to go on holiday, they are ill or if they have children. The

allocation the state gives is not enough

for the expensive machines and the equipment dental surgery needs. For example, while a family doctor receives 1.7 million HUF (EUR 5,500) for their praxis, a dentist gets only 900,000 (EUR 3,000) even though the latter’s equipment is much more expensive. And this is the money from which dentists have to pay not only their assistants and the machines but also the cost of the different materials they use.

The Hungarian dentists already warned the government in March that if there were no change in their situation, they would go on strike, but nothing happened. Interestingly, three days before the start of their strike; however, Ildikó Horváth, state secretary for health appeared on the meeting of the Dental Section of the Hungarian Medical Chamber and

presented the government’s plan on the issue.

According to her, the Orbán-cabinet would increase the state allocation in two steps, which means that by 2021, one dental district will be able to get 300,000 HUF (EUR 1,000) more than before. Furthermore, they will get 1.5 million HUF (EUR 5,000) as a one-sum allowance.