Government: Hungary plans to set up one of Europe’s best healthcare systems
After an 11% pay rise for doctors in January, the wages of healthcare professionals will be further increased in a second phase of wage hikes next March, the interior minister told parliament’s welfare committee at his annual hearing on Tuesday.
The average base salary of doctors has been increased to HUF 2,197,000 (EUR 5,780) and of healthcare professionals to HUF 595,000 (EUR 1,576), which is 37% of the average base salary of doctors, Sándor Pintér, whose portfolio includes healthcare, told the body.
He highlighted improvements in Hungarian healthcare since the ministry took over the coordination of the sector’s tasks, adding that “the government will set up one of Europe’s best healthcare systems”.
In terms of hospital infections, Pintér noted that Hungary was ranked as standing “at the 7th best place in Europe”, adding that he would only be satisfied if Hungary ranked “as best”.
The minister dismissed claims that the number of healthcare workers was gradually dropping.
He called the elimination and the possibility of penalisation of gratuity payments a major achievement, insisting that “gratuity is an immoral basis on which no fair system can be built”.
Asked by opposition committee MPs about the ventilators purchased during the coronavirus pandemic and still held unused in warehouses, Pintér said it had been impossible to say in advance how many of them would be needed. Hungary’s position, he said, was that what had happened in hospitals in Italy should not occur in Hungary, adding that the ventilators would be used to replace old ones in Hungary’s healthcare institutions.
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Oh boy. Here we go. Let’s separate facts from the unicorns and wishful thinking!
Some choice words from the “State of Health in the EU’ 2021: Latest evidence on 29 countries’ health systems performance” – specifically regarding Hungary:
https://eurohealthobservatory.who.int/publications/m/hungary-country-health-profile-2021
“Health spending in Hungary increased at a moderate rate in the years before the pandemic, but remains below the EU average both in terms of spending per capita and as a percentage of GDP. Public funding accounts for two thirds of all health care spending, which is below the EU average of 80 %, leading to high levels of out-of-pocket spending.”.
“Life expectancy at birth in Hungary grew from 71.9 to 75.7 years between 2000 and 2020. Despite this,
in 2020 life expectancy at birth remained almost five years below the EU as a whole, and lower than in Czechia, Poland and Slovakia”
I could go on … sobering reading.
@DNH – wouldn’t it be interesting to cover the December 2023 release of this Companion Report?
The headline is the best joke I have seen in a while. From a 2021 EU report: “Mortality rates from preventable causes in Hungary were the highest of any EU country before the pandemic, highlighting the need to reduce behavioural and other risk factors. Deaths from treatable causes were also far above the EU average, reflecting issues with the quality of health services.” Fidesz has trashed the Hungarian health care system and now proclaims that they are going to give you one of Europe’s best. The government continuously makes so many fantastic promises but what have they delivered after so many years in power – nothing but a worse life.
Most likely this will be for people masquerading as Hungarians living in Romania.