Orbán calls for cooperation to seize momentum for ‘breakthrough’ in doctors’ wage hike

The novel coronavirus in Hungary is spreading at a faster pace than ever, putting the country under increasing pressure until a vaccine is at hand, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Sunday.

In an interview with public broadcaster Kossuth Radio, Orbán said that the government was ready to open additional hospitals and to assign more doctors and nurses “in an effort to keep up with the task”.

Orbán noted that mathematicians had estimated, at the severe end of the scale, that Hungary may contend with 200,000 coronavirus infections, with 16,000 requiring hospitalisation and 800 to 1,000 patients on ventilators. The government has made preparations to accommodate twice that number, he said.

“Just to be on the safe side”, the government is calculating with the epidemic to peak with 400,000 cases, which would require the availability of 32,000 hospital beds and a sufficient number of doctors and nurses.

Orbán said he expected the second wave of the coronavirus epidemic to last longer and be more difficult than the first one. He said it would require restructuring while simultaneously increasing health-care workers’ capability of carrying burdens.

Commenting on the agreement reached between the government and the Hungarian Chamber of Doctors (MOK) on substantially raising the wages of doctors, Orbán said the chamber had been “pushing” its proposals to the government over several months, triggering a debate in the cabinet on whether a substantial wage hike in the sector would be in conflict with necessary economy protection measures.

“This is the moment when we need to stand together, when we need to achieve a breakthrough in improving doctors’ pay, and, if we work together, we will succeed together again,” Orbán said, noting that on MOK’s proposal, gratuity payments were going to be eliminated from the system.

In connection with the European Commission’s recently released Rule of Law report, Orbán said “the picture has become clear as one followed the sequence of events”. The EC first released a migration plan which the Visegrad Group rejected, Orbán said.

A next step was the Commission’s Vice-President Vera Jourova “attacking Hungary” and “branding Hungarians as idiots” which Orbán said was “unacceptable”.