Socialists call for restoring public employee status of health workers

She blamed deficiencies in hospital care on the government order for hospitals to vacate a proportion of their beds during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, the government’s “failure” to properly prepare the health-care sector for the second wave and the law on the new legal status of health workers.

Some 5,500 workers left the sector at the beginning of March, she said, warning that “things could get a lot worse in the near future.” Bango Borbely said many health workers had inserted a clause into their contract saying that they would quit unless their demands were met by May 31.

She said the health sector was plagued by disorganisation, insisting that the Fidesz government had “let health care fall apart” over the last 11 years.

The party’s election platform proposes the establishment of an independent health ministry and the appointment of a “competent member of government” to oversee it, she said.