Economy 9 March 2021, 10:10am

Hungary’s health system creaking under load

Portfolio

An increasing number of warnings from the public health care system point to the severity of the current extreme burden on hospitals. The outstanding pandemic statistics all condensate on COVID wards, while the system draws close to its limits of endurance. In light of the above, it has never been more important for everyone to observe virus protection rules.

Hospital numbers never seen before

As the number of daily new cases shows strange movements, we now have less and less reliable data on which to base our assessment of the virus situation in Hungary. The number of coronavirus patients treated in hospital and on ventilators are two of the reliable data we have left, which is why it is sad that

in just two weeks, the number of people receiving artificial ventilation has doubled.

As pointed out on Monday, the most frightening aspect of the current situation is that the number of people in hospital rose by 479 in just 24 hours, the second biggest single daily rise in this statistic, and nearly reached 8,000, also the second highest ever behind the peak of the second wave. The number of people on ventilators also rose to a new peak, 806.

Warning voices

Given these data, it is not surprising that an increasing number of personal accounts are emerging from state-run hospitals to underscore the dramatic processes:

On Sunday, Péter Pál Varga, founder of the Buda Health Centre, said their pandemic hospital would fill up in a week or two if current trends prevailed.
In the Mosonmagyaróvár city hospital, urgent cases in the maternity, gynaecology and paediatric wards have remained untreated for the fourth day in a row after doctors and nurses had been transferred to the COVID ward. The ICU is at full capacity.
Based on Monday morning information, hospitals can already barely ensure the required daily staff headcount for COVID wards.
Hospital capacities are nearing their limits in Hungary, and complete families are taken into hospital with coronavirus infection, toxicologist Gábor Zacher said in an interview. “I’ve seen a lot and few things can shock me. You learn to cope with it after all these years. But this is a new situation even for me. I have to explain people that we are putting them on ventilators and they may die, when a few hours earlier we had a normal chat during the visit,” he said.
According to the Health Section of the National Association of Entrepreneurs (VOSZ), Hungary’s health care system is engaged in fighting on all fronts. Entrepreneur physicians are a core part of the daily struggle, but major businesses are also pitching in. Some are directly involved in COVID patient care, some are taking on tasks for which the overburdened public system has no resources at present, while others are running vaccination stations or are offering free testing for nursery and kindergarten workers, the VOSZ said.
Many young people are taken into hospital and may end up on ventilators after their condition becomes severe in just a few hours, Chief Medical Officer Cecilia Müller said at Monday’s press conference of the Operational Corps.

Speaking Monday evening on the news of RTL Klub, Zoltán Balogh, president of the Chamber for Hungarian Healthcare Professionals (MESZK), said

Hungary’s health care system has never been under such pressure.

Never before have so many patients required so complicated care at the same time, so the use of available resources should be carefully planned, Balogh said. Hospitals are trying to make ends meet by reallocating staff, but the situation is bound to turn for the worse as thousands of health workers left the public system as of 1 March after they had refused to sign the new contract for health service. Although these doctors and nurses were not all involved in treating COVID patients, they are now missing acutely from background care, Balogh said.

Frontline health workers have 5 12-hour shifts a week, with a single day off to rest, and this is very hard to bear in the long-term especially when patients die each day. In Balogh’s view, all reserve capacities must be mobilised. Health workers from outpatient care could be used, and the system may gain a little time by halting same-day surgeries.

According to László Szijjártó, president of the Győr-Moson-Sopron county medical chamber, the biggest problem is the lack of nurses, who should be somehow brought back to the system to prevent its collapse. “We are now aiming not for quality care but just to keep the hospitals running with sufficient staff, and even that is in jeopardy in many places,” he said.

Szijjártó plans to recruit volunteers to work in the Mosonmagyaróvár hospital. After a short training period, applicants would work in COVID wards and take case of basic nursing tasks.

It is time to involve masses of volunteers and see who among the population would take on this work,

Szjjártó said.

The Ministry of Human Capacities (EMMI), when contacted by RTL, said internal reorganisation would fill the gaps in labour, “as done successfully during the first and second waves”.

Health system to hit capacity limit?

Speaking at a conference last December, Béla Merkely, rector of Budapest’s Semmelweis Medical University, said Hungary’s health care system could cope with about 1,000 people on ventilators, but not for sustained periods of time.

During the past three weeks, the number of people on ventilators rose by 22 a day on average, rising to 35 a day in the past week.

If the rate at which the burden on the health care system increases keeps up, Hungary could hit the capacity limit mentioned above in 5 to 9 days.

Cover photo: MTI/Vajda János