Medical chamber to fight corruption in health care

The Hungarian Medical Chamber recommends to the government to qualify the receipt of "gratitude money" as a criminal offence. The organisation s recommendation and call for action aim to eliminate the practice of patients giving substantial amounts of money in "tips" to doctors in the hope of better provision in the Hungarian public health service. This type of corruption "is a seriously harmful phenomenon in Hungarian society," according to the Chamber.

WORLD POLITICS JANUARY 16. 2020 08:21

The practice of paying doctors „gratitude money” (comparable to a tipping system) has decades-long tradition in Hungary. Every Hungarian citizen who has paid social security is entitled to free-of-charge health care and should not pay for medical services. However, some doctors accept and even expect money gifts from patients, who do put money in doctors pockets in the hope of receiving better services and other benefits in exchange.

The Hungarian Medical Chamber aims to eliminate this corrupt practice.

„The system of parasolvency [paying gratitude money] is a seriously harmful phenomenon in Hungarian society. It is toxic to the doctor-patient relationship, makes patient pathways unpredictable, raises unrealistic expectations, undermines professional principles, impedes a significant range of government intentions in health policy, distorts medical training, and obstructs knowledge transfer. It is in the fundamental interest of both patients and doctors that the government should qualify parasolvency as corruption and a criminal offence as soon as possible,” says the statement of the Hungarian Medical Chamber.

The organisation has worked out a proposal for a one-step hike in the salaries of doctors working in the public health care sector and has also recommended that after the raise in salaries, accepting money gifts should be a crime that is incorporated in the Criminal Code.

WORLD POLITICS

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anticorruption, corruption, health, hungarian medical chamber, law, proposal