Karácsony noted that the city has already reached an agreement with the government in connection with Budapest organising the 2023 track and field world championship, allocating 50 billion forints to improving health-care services in the city over the next 5 years, he said.

The city is hopeful of obtaining additional funding to improve CT and MRI services, he said. The city is aiming to develop a coordinated health-care policy between the districts’ services, Karácsony said.

Gábor Havasi of the Momentum party, the municipality’s advisor on health-care policy, noted that patients currently have to wait 2-3 months for scans. With an annual two billion forints, that could be reduced to less than a week, he said. The city council will spend nearly 8 billion forints on improving health-care service in the districts, Havasi said.

In a statement on Saturday, Balázs Fürjes, the state secretary for Budapest and metropolitan agglomeration development, said the agreements the government has reached with the municipal council would serve the interests of Budapest’s residents.

In their talks during the week, the two sides also discussed waste collection, he said. Fürjes said government representatives had told the mayor that the government intends to preserve the uniform nationwide waste management system, and that the company in charge of it had no outstanding debts to Budapest’s public works company FKF.

They also agreed that if FKF and the company in charge of Hungary’s waste management had any disagreements over the system, they would have to discuss them together with the government and the municipal council, the state secretary said.

MTI Photo: Mohai Balázs