Coronavirus – Jobbik calls for end to ’emptying’ hospitals, DK wants nationwide testing

The conservative opposition Jobbik on Tuesday called for an end to what deputy leader László György Lukács called “emptying” hospitals of patients, following a government decree ordering hospitals to free 60 percent of beds for potential patients infected by the novel coronavirus.

Lukács insisted that patients were often discharged without a home to return to or put into the care of family members “basically without further treatment”. The measure harms thousands of elderly, chronically ill people whose care could only be ensured within a hospital, he said.

Lukács also rejected the decision to call doctors above 65 years of age back to work, saying they were in the demographic group most endangered by Covid-19.

He called on Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to sack Human Resources Minister Miklós Kásler, saying that the minister’s “bad decisions should have cost him his position long ago”. He insisted that the special powers granted to the government for the duration of the state of emergency mean that Orban was “directly responsible” for those decisions.