“The government is placing emphasis on disease prevention, and accordingly one of the main directions for healthcare development projects is the improvement of basic services”, Minister of Human Capacities Miklós Kásler said on Monday morning on Hungarian M1 current affairs television.

“The government is funding the establishment of group practices with over 10 billion forints (EUR 30.4 million) to enable the various medical professions to operate together within each geographical unit”, the Minister announced.

“In addition, specialists working in basic and specialist services will be receiving a monthly, fixed salary increase in view of the fact that while the income of general practitioners has been continuously increasing, that of specialists has not kept up”, he added.

Mr. Kásler also spoke about the fact that the emergency treatment system has been reorganised, five national programmes have been developed, and the National Ambulance Service is also being continuously developed.

“As part of the latter, ambulance stations have been refurbished and new ones have been constructed, in addition to which new ambulances have also been purchased and ambulance equipment has also been updated”, he added.

“The Electronic Health Cooperation System Space (EESZT) will also expanding further: from January patients and their doctors will be able to access all of their healthcare data from a single source”, he announced.

The Minister also spoke about the fact that a Lajos Bakay Scholarship has been launched to facilitate the retraining of general surgeons to vascular surgeons, to enable vascular surgery centres in Budpaest to provide a continuous on-call service from next year.

Speaking on Kossuth Radio’s “Good Morning, Hungary!” show, Mr. Kásler also mentioned that state subsidies for traumatic care will be increasing, with the budget spending 3.4 billion forints (EUR 10.3 million) on fixed charges this year and a further 10 billion forints (EUR 30.4 million) next year.

(MTI)