Hungarian Government and Doctors in Stand-off over Healthcare Reform

Hungary’s healthcare system has been in dire need of reform for decades but an all-encompassing solution is yet to be presented. The government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has launched several measures over recent years to address issues in healthcare but the latest steps have provoked significant resistance from doctors.

Late last year, the government presented a proposal designed to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system. Officials presented the proposed changes to professional bodies, including the Hungarian Chamber of Doctors, the Hungarian Hospital Association and the Hungarian Chamber of Health Care Professionals, which had 5 days to comment. In response, the Hungarian Chamber of Doctors (MOK) asked the government to refrain from submitting the proposal to Parliament, citing concerns that the fast pace of the reform could jeopardize the security of healthcare in Hungary and could encourage some doctors to leave the state system. They voiced their disagreement with several points of the proposal, most particularly the reorganization and centralization of medical on-call centers.
Under the draft proposal, the number of on-call points in the entire country, would decrease to 102 on-call centers from 300. The Chamber added that in their opinion the proposal fails to address long-standing problems and creates new ones or deepens existing ones instead.
The government submitted the proposal to Parliament in mid-November without taking into account MOK’s proposals. Lawmakers adopted the package.

Threats of resignation
As a response, some 4,500 doctors sent declarations to the Chamber, signaling their intention to resign. Subsequent discussions between government and MOK representative failed to yield substantial results. In early 4 February, the extraordinary general assembly of delegates of MOK voted almost unanimously that general practitioners should not sign the new on-call contracts, and should deposit the resignations of their current ones, while hospital doctors should deposit the resignations of their voluntary overtime as a last-ditch effort to put pressure on the authorities. By mid-February, only 10-20% of general practitioners in the two counties that were the first to switch to the new on-call system had signed their new contracts, while the others refused to do so.

Abuse of power
The Ministry of Interior accused the Hungarian Chamber of Doctors with abuse of power and stated that MOK’s behavior amounts to abuse and "jeopardizes the fundamental right of patients to safe healthcare, which is immoral". By obstructing the new on-call system and thus endangering healthcare, the Chamber is violating the fundamental rule of its democratic public nature and is disregarding its own objectives," the ministry’s statement noted. Taking matters further, the government submitted a bill to amend the law on professional chambers in the health sector and the law on health care. The amendment said that the right to safe health care is a fundamental constitutional right, which the Hungarian Chamber of Doctors is threatening when it "puts pressure on doctors not to sign the on-call contracts." The bill, which was passed within 48 hours by Parliament, removes the mandatory membership in the medical chamber and transfers ongoing ethics proceedings to the Health Science Council. Physicians have 30 days to declare whether they wish to retain their chamber membership.
The Chamber reacted with a statement that said: "Today, the government launched a brutal attack on the Hungarian Chamber of Doctors, which is built on lies. We will be filing a lawsuit against the Ministry of Interior for breach of trust because their statement contained untrue statements."
So far, more than 2,500 doctors have indicated they wish to remain members of the Chamber.