Opposition MEP calls for independent health-care ministry, budget raise

Klára Dobrev, an MEP of the opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) party, pledged wage and staff increases in health care and a stand-alone ministry to oversee the sector, if DK gets elected into power next spring.

Dobrev, who is running in the pre-election to become the opposition alliance’s prime ministerial candidate, and two health experts of the party held an online press conference after meeting representatives of five health-care organisations in Budapest on Friday.

“The coronavirus pandemic highlighted the collapse of Hungarian healthcare,” Dobrev said.

The strategically important health-care sector needs a specialised ministry, she added.

The opposition parties have pledged to raise health-care spending to the EU average ratio of GDP, she said.

She said a large-scale staff increase the first and most important task, pledging to employ an additional 3,000 new doctors, 500 GPs, and 9,000 new health professionals in the coming years.

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Ruling Fidesz responded by saying that it would not allow a return of the previous era of Socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány’s government in Hungarian healthcare.

“That government repeatedly cut healthcare funding, closed several hospitals, introduced a fee for a doctor’s visits and stripped the sector’s workers one month’s salary,” Fidesz said in a statement.

Since taking power in 2010, Fidesz has increased health-care spending and the wages of doctors and nurses, and has revamped a great number of hospitals across the country, it said, adding that Hungary’s health-care system had been up to its job in tackling the pandemic so far, unlike several other European countries.

Source: MTI