At the same time, if a doctor connects the provision of a free service to some kind of payment, this would be seen as a crime.

The cabinet has not yet discussed the ministry’s proposal.

Tamás Dénes, head of the Hungarian Junior Doctors Association, told the paper that the reason lots of doctors are leaving the country was to do with the deeply ingrained gratuity system in Hungarian health care, and so it would be a mistake to legally conserve this type of “soft corruption”.

Health-care workers should be properly paid and gratuities outlawed, he insisted.

Gábor Magyar, a lawyer, told the paper that the primary reason for the government’s move would be to withdraw the threat of legal consequences for accepting gratuities.

Central Statistical Office data shows that users of Hungarian public health care spent 8.3 billion forints on gratuities last year as against 3 billion in 1998.

Source www.hungarymatters.hu

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