Almost 10 thousand nurses disappeared from Hungarian hospitals!

Mostly hospitals in Budapest struggle with the shortage of nurses, and despite measures taken by the government, the problem is far from being solved. Nurse managers say that the shortage could only be reduced by higher wages, scholarships, introducing an employee benefit program and by the re-employment of pensioners.

Instead of the needed growth, the number of nurses decreases

At present, more and more hospitals hire nurses, scrub nurses and surgeon’s mates from employment agencies – Magyar Nemzet reported. For example, the director of Péterfy Hospital in the 7th district, Antal Sásdi, said to the daily that there is a significant shortage of professionals at the department of traumatology. There, they would need 22 people, but they only have 14, and they hire 8 of them from an employment agency. Furthermore, the director added that in the chronic care unit, they have only one nurse for the night shift at a department with 60-70 beds.

Andrea Ficzere, head of the Hungarian Hospital Association, said that despite government efforts, there are not enough nurses in the hospitals. Hanna Páva, deputy director of the National Institute for Health Services, added that there are 108 thousand nurses in the Hungarian health care system. However, their number

decreased by 9,000 between just 2013 and 2018, 

and most of the experienced professionals above 35 left the hospitals. Furthermore, even though more than 50 pc of the nurses graduated in the 1980s and 1990s work in their profession, this rate is only 33 pc in the case of the 2000-2009 generation, and 42 pc among those who finished school between 2010 and 2017. The rest never worked in their profession or already changed their career.

Without more money, a solution is hard to imagine