Appearing before Parliament’s health committee on Monday, the minister-designate pledged a fundamentally new approach: care that is measurable and transparent, a renewed emphasis on primary care and professional bodies, and an additional 500 billion forints in annual funding for the sector.
Structural reforms ahead
Zsolt Hegedűs told his confirmation hearing that restoring the sector to an independent ministry would mark an important step towards a more humane and functional Hungary. Healthcare, he said, must become a national cause rather than a theatre for political games.
The new Ministry of Health will comprise five state secretariats, alongside two newly established authorities: a Digital Health Authority and a Healthcare Quality Control Authority. The Hungarian Medical Chamber will regain its former powers. Hegedűs also confirmed that the National Ambulance Service will be overseen by a ministerial commissioner until January 2027, adding that the service must be stabilised and modernised, with patient transport separated from emergency response.
He outlined that the ministry will include state secretariats responsible for primary care, digital health, and public health, as well as administrative and political affairs. While most appointments will be announced on Friday, Krisztina Porpáczy has already been named as the official in charge of primary care.
Karikó joins advisory body
Hegedűs further revealed that Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Katalin Karikó has accepted an invitation to join the minister’s advisory council.
In his assessment of the current system, he was blunt: “Hungarian healthcare is very ill.” He described a deep crisis of trust, a fragmented system, and a profession largely excluded from decision-making.
Spending has fallen behind, with healthcare expenditure at 4.1 per cent of GDP in 2023, compared with an EU average of 7 per cent. The system faces a shortage of tens of thousands of healthcare workers and several thousand general practitioners, leaving around 900,000 people without a family doctor — a situation he warned poses a serious risk to patient safety.
A stated priority
By contrast, he said, a future Tisza government would treat healthcare as a priority, aiming to build a system that is accessible to all, transparent, patient-centred and free at the point of use.
Among his core objectives, Hegedűs highlighted the complete elimination of informal payments, amplifying the “voice” of patients and their families, restoring professional autonomy and social respect for healthcare workers, and identifying and implementing best practices. He also stressed a renewed focus on prevention and public health.
The key question, he argued, is not the number of hospital beds or who maintains them, but how many patients are successfully treated, by whom, and how quickly diagnoses are reached.
He promised that treatment outcomes and performance data would be made public, and that patients would be given the opportunity to provide voluntary — even anonymous — feedback on their care and interactions with medical staff. The state, he added, must provide the platform for this, alongside an independent patient rights system.
Transparency as a principle
Public scrutiny, he said, would be central to the system’s renewal. Measurement and data validation are indispensable, but transparency is not intended to shame; rather, honesty must become both a virtue and a duty, not a liability.
He also addressed the issue of private services operating within state institutions, arguing that these must be brought under clear and transparent rules. Opaque private provision within public facilities, he said, cannot continue unchecked and will be subject to review.
Responding to questions from MPs, Hegedűs criticised the lack of professional debate preceding certain recent measures, including the so-called “heartbeat decree” and the abolition of free choice of obstetrician. Decisions concerning both the beginning and end of life, he insisted, require thorough professional and societal discussion.
Do you remember? Hegedűs became world-famous with his dance in front of the Parliament:
Hungary’s dancing health minister steals the show again as British singer Jalja joins Kossuth Square celebration
Sharp exchanges
The session also saw a pointed exchange with former health state secretary Péter Takács, who attended with speaking rights. While acknowledging the new government’s good intentions, Takács expressed regret that no substantive policy debate had taken place between them.
Hegedűs retorted that Takács had represented a level of political discourse “beneath which one does not go”, accusing him of personal remarks that made him unfit, as a senior public official, for meaningful dialogue. “You are the Tamás Menczer of healthcare,” he added.
The committee ultimately approved Hegedűs’s nomination as minister by six votes to one abstention.
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The most talented people are joining Tisza to reform Hungary out of the complete disaster Orban led the country into. People with global stature like Kariko and the global VP of Shell would never have had anything to with the Fidesz criminals.