The left wing's prime ministerial hopeful spoke last autumn about closing down emergency and obstetric care in rural areas. The PM candidate is also campaigning for a pay-as-you-use healthcare system.

Peter Marki-Zay, the joint prime ministerial candidate of Hungary’s leftist opposition parties, is set to shut down a large number of healthcare institutions, Origo writes. The Hungarian news portal recalls that the prime ministerial hopeful of the so-called Rainbow Coalition (made up of Hungary’s opposition parties -ed.) spoke in detail last autumn about supporting the centralisation of healthcare institutions, which would entail limited access to various services in numerous locations, primarily in rural areas.

„Yes, people must accept that there is no emergency or obstetric care available near those living in rural towns or even villages,” the Origo news site writes, quoting the politician.

Origo recalls that regarding this issue – similarly to his stance on many other issues – Mr Marki-Zay holds views in line with the policies of the pre-2010 left-wing governments in Hungary. Under the leadership of former PM Ferenc Gyurcsany (2004-2009), a number of hospitals in Hungary were shut down as a consequence of budget cuts, including the National Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, and the number of active hospital beds was reduced by a total of 16,000.

Before 2010, the left-wing governments withdrew a total of 650 billion forints (appr. 2.6 billion euros) from healthcare, removing around 250 billion forints from direct patient care, and nearly 400 billion forints from the Health Insurance Fund, Origo recalls.

The portal points out that the idea of citizens paying-as-needed for healthcare services is a recurrent theme on the Hungarian left. Ferenc Gyurcsany’s government, for example, introduced co-payment fees on GP visits and on inpatient hospital stays, and Peter Marki-Zay would follow a similar policy on this issue. In a Facebook video posted in 2019, Peter Marki-Zay criticised Hungary’s Constitutional Court for approving the questions of the 2008 social referendum initiated by the ruling Fidesz party, which was in opposition then. In a Facebook video from 2019, the politician criticised the Constitutional Court for allowing the questions of the social referendum back in 2007, initiated by the then opposition, now major governing party Fidesz. It is worth remembering that more than four-fifths of Hungarians who cast their votes in the referendum rejected the new levies, Origo writes.

The portal also points out that Mr Marki-Zay said at a campaign forum in March 2018 that “only a drastic privatisation can help” the in his view currently poor conditions, that is, he would privatise healthcare services, hospitals, and clinics. It is worth remembering that the government led by Ferenc Gyurcsany introduced similar measures. For example, they pushed through the outsourcing of laboratory services, catering, patient transport, asset management and operations, against the protests of Fidesz, which was in opposition at the time. The Hungarian news portal points out that before 2010, the government’s latter move especially caused difficulties for several municipalities in Hungary, when the private companies contracted to run the local hospitals went bankrupt.