Hungarian woman receives 4 useless immunity certificates

An elderly lady from the 14^th district of Budapest received four plastic cards proving her immunity against coronavirus. Still, she is not able to use any of them.

The immunity certificate has a vital role in every country as citizens are getting vaccinated. This plastic card gives its owner certain benefits when going out or having a drink in a bar. People have been complaining about several problems related to the certificate ever since the government started issuing them. Some people did not receive their plastic card at all, others were given one with a mistake on it, and now there is the case of this elderly lady from Budapest who is not able to enjoy the benefits of her card, despite having received 4 of it.

Are there serious problems with the Hungarian immunity certificate? 

The mistake that was committed by the Bureau of the capital of Budapest is very simple. They issued the certificate with a wrong, already expired ID number.

Although she has asked for a new one repeatedly, she kept on receiving the same plastic card containing the same expired identification number.

Moreover, the Bureau even wants to charge her 3000 forints for the change, with which she has been struggling for months now.

“This is the first immunity certificate I got after being vaccinated, and then I received another one almost every month, practically every three weeks”, shows Irén Béláné Kiss to ATV.hu all her plastic cards. 

Many would envy her for these four cards; however, it is worth very little since she cannot use any of them for being invalid. She immediately wrote an email reporting the problem to the Bureau, from where she was directed to the municipality.

Two weeks after making her fill out a reclamation form, she was sent a new immunity certificate with the same problem,

the wrong ID number. Then she had to start everything all over again: “I went to the Bureau to notify them about the issue, that it is not good, it is again not correct. I repeated this three times.”

Then last week, she received her fourth, invalid card. She feels very desperate as she is not able to travel, and she feels very uncomfortable every time she has to explain herself at the swimming pool. Furthermore, she does not understand why she should be the one paying 3000 forints for changing the card when it was not her mistake on any of the occasions.

When the district’s mayor was asked about the issue, he told ATV that anything related to the immunity certificate is outside his authority; it belongs to the so-called Government Windows. These are offices that are situated in the building of the municipality. Hence they made her fill out the reclamation form. However, Csaba Horváth thinks that this administrational glitch could be resolved quickly:

“If the government uploaded all information and data related to the pandemic and the vaccination process to an international online system, before June 15.”

The mayor referred to the international, EU accepted system to facilitate free movement among member states for those vaccinated.

Here you can read all details about the EU immunity certificate

When it comes to paying a fee for changing the incorrect certificate, the website of the Government Window says that in case of destroying or losing the card, the change would indeed cost 3000 forints. However, if the issue is an incorrect card due to inaccurate data on it, the card needs to be left in the office of the Government Window. There is no further information on what needs to be done if someone keeps on receiving the same invalid, thus useless immunity certificate.

The Ministry of Human Resources says that all problems and claims are being investigated by the Government Bureau, after having been reported either personally at a Government Window or online, through the system of the so-called Governmental Gate (Ügyfélkapu), where all working Hungarian citizens can deal with their errands faster and easier. At least, that is how it should be.

Read alsoBreaking – Important change to come to the Hungarian immunity certificate

Source: atv.hu, dailynewshungary.com