He said a plan by the Hungarian Residents’ Association, which represents junior doctors, was worthy of consideration. Junior doctors have been leaving Hungary in droves to work in places like Britain.

The association’s plan calls for scrapping gratuity payments and allowing patients to choose doctors, while introducing a centrally set minimum wage for specialists, Zombor said. Gratuity payments are the biggest obstacle standing in the way of reforming the country’s health-care system, he said.

Eliminating this is in the interest of the majority of doctors and patients, Zombor added, noting a proposal by the health industry’s chamber on introducing a career model for health-care workers.

Zombor noted plans to allocate extra one-off short-term funding to Hungarian hospitals from the reserves of the central health fund. He said that in the second half of the year a consolidation plan would be drafted with the aim of preventing the “reproduction” of hospital debt in the medium term.

He said that programs aimed at improving public health with EU funding would continue.

Source www.hungarymatters.hu

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