Outraged healthcare workers: 1 forint raise?

Many articles have been addressing the Hungarian healthcare system and why it is less rosy than the other national healthcare systems in Europe. In fact, the national healthcare system is so aggravating that many people choose to spend more and turn to private healthcare. There is a massive labour shortage, doctors and nurses are seriously underpaid. The government announced that healthcare professionals’ wages would be raised. This is what happened consequently.

The government raised the wages of healthcare workers by 12% last November, reports RTL.hu.

The original proposal was that they would raise wages by an additional 8% in November 2018. However, the government decided to raise wages much earlier this year.

This January, wages have been raised again by 8%.

The Ministry of Human Capacities told RTL that 70,000 healthcare professionals’ wages were raised this January.

According to the ministry, by now, there is no healthcare worker in Hungary whose wage has not been raised.

According to the statistics, healthcare professionals got an average raise of HUF 8,000 – HUF 10,000.

What needs to be emphasised here is that those healthcare workers who earn less than the minimum wage (which is HUF 180,500) did actually not get any raise this January. The Ministry of Human Capacities, however, told RTL that, because the guaranteed minimum income (GMI) was also raised in January, there is no one working in healthcare whose wage did not increase.