The number of health care workers with special qualification past the retirement age dropped by 64% and the number of all other pension-age health care workers dropped by 82% in the last quarter of 2013 year-on-year, the paper said. Current regulations ban paying a monthly wage and a pension simultaneously but under a government decision a supplement can be paid to pension-age health care workers.

This supplement has however not proved an incentive strong enough to keep retired doctors on the job, the paper said, citing János Bélteczki, the head of the Hungarian doctors’ federation. Many of them, aged 65 or even 70, left the profession citing huge workload as a result of staff shortage in the profession, Bélteczki told the paper.

Another reason for the doctors’ decision is shortage of supplies and equipment in hospitals, Bélteczki added.

Although the number of doctors going abroad dropped considerably last year as a result of wage hikes and government grants, the number of employees in Hungary’s health-care sector overall went down by 1.3% due to a high number of retirements, the paper said.

Source www.hungarymatters.hu

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