Hospital divisions closed due to holidays

In Hungary, the small number of healthcare workers is apparently a serious problem, now the joint infectology department of St István Hospital and St László Hospital was closed due to this issue, Magyar Nemzet reports.

The patients are not informed about this in any written form, and the workers did not wish to give further information on the situation either.

János Szlavik infectologyst told Magyar Nemzet that forty beds were closed off now because workers go on Christmas holiday. He does not believe this to be a new practice, and it works like this in other hospitals too. Meaning it is probably not the only institute where part of the beds is unreachable.

In this time of the year more workers take days off and it is harder to substitute them.

The lack of specialists is a more and more severe problem in most healthcare centres. In the summer of 2017, 7028 jobs were unfulfilled.

According to János Szlavik, the closing off of the beds will not cause a problem, in this time of the year there are usually no epidemics, the flu is typical in January and February. Still, they can treat all their patients; a similar situation has already occurred in the hospital.

But this is not a real solution to the problem in general. Zoltán Ónodi-Szűcs State Secretary for Health declared that the lack of specialists is the main cause of the human resource crisis. The number of doctors per head is the same as the European average. To mitigate the crisis, the government will launch a scholarship programme.