Socialists: Health care 'a chaos'

A lawmaker of the opposition Socialists on Thursday harshly criticised the situation surrounding Hungarian hospitals and health care as outrageous and "chaotic", in light of a recent law passed by parliament. "What we have seen in the sector just this year are endless waiting lists, shortage of doctors and nurses, mass vacancies, closed-down wards, hospital-care related infection, unpaid hospital bills and graft," Ildiko Borbely Bango told a press conference. She said that tens of thousands of patients die in Hungary each year because they do not get sufficient care. Hospitals have in addition amassed 70 billion forints (EUR 213m) worth of debt, which jeopardises proper care and tens of thousands of jobs in the hospital suppliers' sector, she added.