Waiting times in Hungarian healthcare are through the roof

It seems like the coronavirus not only affected our everyday lives and both the catering industry and tourism but it also greatly impacted Hungarian healthcare as surgical waiting lists at Hungarian hospitals can be yearslong.

According to Blikk’s information, there are several procedures that can be deferred, and the waiting time for such procedures has sharply increased compared to how long it was before the coronavirus pandemic. There are some patients whose condition might significantly worsen over time and would need fast intervention. GPs might suggest operations for certain patients to prevent later health issues or to cure them, but if waiting lists are half-a-year to a year long, and people are in pain, that period seems like an eternity.

Some waited eight hours for treatment

Living in the shadow of a serious illness is a burden for the patient. Renáta Urbán underwent surgery for breast cancer three years ago. Her CT last November was unsuccessful, as the machine failed.

She got a new appointment to May 2020, but the examination was postponed once again due to COVID-19.

Renáta told Blikk that she has done chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery, and she has to go to strict control examinations every quarter. She said that she is so anxious she has nightmares sometimes. Even though she goes to these examinations, the results sometimes do not arrive for two weeks, and the fact that her CT examination has been postponed worries her as cancer could reoccur. She also said that healthcare professionals perform beyond their strength, and most of them seem to be very tired. Sometimes patients undergoing chemotherapy may need to wait 8 hours before being called in; meanwhile, the doctor never comes out, not even for a break, she said.

176-day-long wait for heart surgery

There are procedures, such as cardiac valve surgery, for which a patient currently has to wait 176 days on a national average, but in the Northern Great Plain region, it is already 208 days. This February, before the pandemic, it was somewhat lower: 141 days on average. Although this is worrying, some other procedures might have a shorter waiting time than they had in February: minor urological or varicose vein surgeries are two examples from the database of the National Health Insurance Fund. These waiting times, of course, are subject to change depending on other circumstance as well, so in Blikk’s compilation, they used numbers from six months ago to today, and they compared it to February’s numbers.

A significant amount of healthcare institutions are required to be prepared for the mass reception of severe coronavirus patients.