July 1, the birthday of Ignác Semmelweis, has been Hungarian Health Day since 1992. Efrom the press conference held on the occasion by the Hungarian Medical Chamber (MOK). At the event, the current situation of domestic patient care and those working in the field, the critical points and the results achieved so far under the new presidency were outlined.
“The system is severely underfunded”
The issue of financing was identified as the most important problem.
According to the OECD report, Hungary spends less than 5 percent of GDP on healthcare, while the EU average is 7 percent
– pointed out the general secretary of the IOC, Tamás Svéd, who noted to the Index: if we were to reach the European average spending – due to the income differences compared to Western countries – less money would still be spent in the system. He added: the problem is not new, we have been lagging behind in the financing of patient care for a long time. In his opinion, the government has no intention of increasing resources, rather they focus on redistribution and creating order, but modern, sustainable health care would require additional resources.
Compared to the EU average, we are struggling with a deficit of HUF 1,000 billion, and according to estimates, hospital debt of HUF 200-300 billion has to be reckoned with by the end of the year. The infrastructure – as well as human resources – is outdated in many places, specialist appointments are suspended in the event of retirements, forcing patients to travel long distances for care
he detailed.
Nevertheless, he also named good directions: for example, the IT developments at the EESZT and the Outpatient Management System, as well as the planned unification of the results of laboratory tests. The Secretary General admitted that the system really needed to be reformed, previously Hungarian healthcare was left to itself, there were only insular developments.
Worrying trends
Aat the same time, he considers it worrisome a facial recognition system that counts working hours, and the fact that doctors and skilled workers are taken from their workplace in handcuffs for accepting gratuities. Péter Álmos, the president of the chamber, said that vaccination and virus deniers are threatening and suing doctors, speaking about the recent attacks on their colleagues.
There have been cases in which the IOC has already filed a police report
he mentioned. As it was pointed out, a guide to avoiding mandatory childhood vaccinations is being circulated among parents, efforts to do so can trigger particularly dangerous epidemiological processes. “We can already see that there are long-forgotten diseases in our country they got for new strength,” added Tamás Svéd.
Péter Álmos also touched on the fact that among the vaccination skeptics there are some doctors who are not members of the Chamber.
One of the negatives of the abolition of mandatory medical association membership is that they cannot take action against ethically and professionally dubious practices.
Previously, due to the suspension of membership in the chamber, the person could not continue his profession, but today only the court can prohibit him from doing so, pointed out the president of the MOK. He called Reiki medicine (which has already appeared in the hospital), overemphasis on the role of dietary supplements, or denture replacement as professionally unfounded.
Private healthcare is less controlled, nevertheless the mentioned cases are blatant cases, Hungarian doctors perform their work at a high professional standard that is also recognized abroad
he said. He also explained that their membership is still stable, three-quarters of the medical community, 34,000 doctors belong to them, 23,000 of them work in public care, 7,000 in part-time or full-time employment, and 11,000 in private providers. Katalin Meglécz, the vice-president of the chamber, noted that, based on this, they also have a greater insight into private healthcare: according to their experience, the connection with public care is not adequate in several areas, for example, patients diagnosed with cancer at private providers do not receive treatment within 14 days in the state system, contrary to the regulations. There may be changes in this area following government consultations.
There are things they cooperate with the government on
Katalin Meglécz said that at the end of February, the Hungarian Medical Chamber agreed with the Minister of the Interior, Sándor Pintér, that they would meet every quarter, and in the meantime intensive joint work is going on in several working groups. The vice-president also revealed that the Ministry of the Interior last discussed the five most urgent issues of the health sector, which they named last week.
Despite the fact that we made consensus proposals, no breakthrough took place, but we can report partial results, mainly regarding outpatient management
– He told. The transition to the new on-call system, which will be introduced from October, was discussed, but on July 17, the affected hospitals and general practitioners will discuss this with an even wider professional plenum with the management of the OMSZ. MOK also played a role in the development of guidelines for three areas, in the coordination of cardiology, psychiatric and imaging diagnostic referrals. They also proposed the creation of a domestic medical register, in which professional competences would also be indicated, but for now the government rejected the suggestion, citing that it would be resolved within its own competence.
Issues of performance-based pay
Péter Álmos also spoke about the fact that three proposals were sent to the ministry regarding the performance-based remuneration of doctors. According to their point of view, this could only be introduced by keeping the existing basic salary, in such a way that it does not result in inequality between doctors. According to their estimates, this would require an annual expenditure of 15 billion, which can be considered an insignificant amount compared to the total funding of several hundred billion.
When asked by the Index how they explain the 8-10 percent drop in performance compared to the pre-Covid level despite the increased wages, the chamber president stated: this is not related to the doctors’ income.
Pathology or radiology were not affected by parasolvency, but there are waiting lists for histology or CT-MRI and ultrasound examinations. The new healthcare service legal relationship does not allow the doctor to work at 2-3 jobs, as before, and many specialists who switched to private healthcare were followed by their patients, who thus do not appear in public care statistics
– Péter Álmos, the president of the Hungarian Medical Chamber, told our newspaper.
(Cover photo: Attila Balázs / MTI)
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2024-07-09 08:45:39