Inside Orbán cabinet’s secret plan to reform healthcare

For years, journalists and experts tried to obtain it, while the government classified the document until 2030. Now, however, details have emerged from a several-hundred-page healthcare reform plan that proposed radical changes and could have fundamentally reshaped the Hungarian healthcare system.

Radical proposal: fewer hospitals, entirely new structure

A study prepared in 2020 at the request of the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior outlined a comprehensive reform of the country’s healthcare system. The document was produced by an international consultancy firm as part of a contract worth several hundred million forints.

One of the most striking elements of the proposal was a major restructuring of healthcare institutions. According to the calculations, the number of hospitals operating in 2019 – 108 in total – would have been reduced to roughly 70 by 2035.

The number of outpatient care facilities would have decreased even more dramatically, falling from more than 500 to just under 200.

The aim, according to the plan, was not simply closure but the concentration of healthcare services. The logic was straightforward: fewer institutions, but ones that are better equipped and operate at a higher professional standard.

A new patient pathway: polyclinics at the centre of the system

A key element of the reform would have been a two-tier outpatient care model. The first level would have consisted of so-called polyclinics, designed to treat the most common illnesses and accessible within a 15–30 minute journey.

The second level would have been larger, more complex outpatient centres offering diagnostic services and a broader range of treatments. These facilities would have been reachable within roughly an hour for most of the population.

The hospital system would also have been reorganised: each county would have had one regional hospital, complemented by smaller local hospitals serving surrounding areas.

Not closures, but transformation?

According to HVG, hospitals that ceased to operate in their previous form would not necessarily have disappeared entirely. Many facilities would have been converted into chronic care centres, rehabilitation institutions, or social care facilities.