Hungary minister orders hospitals to vacate 60% of beds
The same explanation was provided by Hungary’s Chief Medical Officer Cecília Müller at an online press briefing on Tuesday, as well.
Local daily newspaper Népszava was the first to report on 9 April that all public hospitals offering in-patient care were ordered to free at least 60% of their beds for new COVID-19 patients. In practice this means that 36,000 of the 60,000 hospital beds needs to be evacuated. Hospitals were given eight days to comply, which is practically five days given that three days are holidays.
A hospital director then told the paper that this does not mean that they are currently treating patients in all of the 36,000 beds required, as since the state of emergency was declared on 11 March patients have been admitted in hospitals only in urgent cases.
Minister of Human Capacities Miklós Kásler had 800 hospital beds vacated on epidemiological departments in early March. The current measure does not differentiate between institutions that tend for chronic patients and active institutions where patients who recently undergone surgery are hospitalised. The latter may be able to transfer patients only to the former institutions but if there are no available beds there, they will have nowhere to refer their patients to.
Hospitals treating people with chronic conditions are full of elderly patients that cannot be cared for in their homes or who are hospitalised for social reasons. Most of them are now likely to be sent home.
A 73-year old woman complained to RTL that she received a call from the hospital that she has 72 hours to take home her 93-year old mother who needs 24-hour care. She said she is in no physical condition to bathe her or change her diapers, and the wait time at nursing homes is one or two years. The local government ensures a nurse for one hour a day, which, she said, is not enough to care for her mother, do the shopping, go to the pharmacy or the post office.
It is not even enough to free a few beds in a couple of wards. Whole sections must be evacuated and sealed off by locking systems on corridors. In some hospitals the maternity ward moved in with surgery, elsewhere Otorhinolaryngology was “merged” with urology. Some of the hospitals managed to comply with Kásler’s request by sending everyone home and closing admissions. News portal 24.hu reported last Wednesday that Honvéd Hospital emptied its pay-per-stay elderly care unit in Újpest, sending home 226 patients.
Kásler has recently fired Dr. Péter Cserháti, General Director of the National Institute of Medical Rehabilitation (OORI), for he failed to free over 200 beds. Cserháti promised the minister to free less than one tenth of the required number by 15 April.
The staff of the OORI has protested against the dismissal of their General Director in an open letter. OORI is basically the only high-level rehabilitation institution in the country, taking care of patients recovering from serious illnesses, e.g. stroke or spinal injuries. The staff said in the letter that 233 beds will, in fact, be freed by the deadline, the main building is being vacated, and the institution will be ready to treat COVID-19 patients if necessary.
