Following the referendum landslide that will reverse some of the reforms introduced by the government last year, the health ministry is coming under fresh attacks from the opposition over its program to install safes next to every hospital bed. The ministry had initially said hospitals failing to install the safes before the March 8 deadline were liable to pay a fine, but those threats have since been withdrawn. Main opposition party Fidesz suspects business interests to be the key factor in the aggressive push for the installation of safes.
According to RTL Klub, Socialist MP Tibor Schvarcz announced on Monday that hospitals are no longer required to install a safe next to every bed. Health Minister Ágnes Horváth later denied this news. However, the following day, it emerged that regulations on safes had been modified – every hospital is required to install a safe for storing patients’ valuables but not next to every bed.
At a Tuesday press conference, Fidesz MP István Mikola said that it is possible that there are business interests behind the hospital safes program, though the party had no proof of this. Even if this is not the case, Fidesz believes the failure of the program demonstrates the incompetence of the country’s health care bosses.
The news comes too late for all but ten hospitals, who have already ordered the safes. Dr. Mihály Svébis, director of the Bács-Kiskun County Hospital, said he did not know what to do about the hospital’s contract to purchase the safes if they are really not compulsory after all.
Horváth announced the hospital safes program in December because an average of 1,200 thefts are reported in hospitals each year. The ministry provided hospitals a total of Ft 600 million (€2.28 million) for the purchase of 70,000 safes.
By introducing the safes the hospitals, paid by taxed money, can take away any responsibility for any thefts.
I have a hard time understanding why this would be wrong? Is Fidesz supporting thefts at public hospitals? Or Fidesz want taxed money to be paid in compensation to the victims?
You gotta be kidding! Three petty thefts a day in a country of 10 million? Most of them are probably the result of carelessness. How did this become the most important problem in the failing health care system? Is she (the health minister that is) getting paid by the contractors or is she just plain dumb? Maybe both? She sure is incompetent to say the least.
Hospitals have plenty of problems, the last thing they need is another one.
We can agree on that “Hospitals have plenty of problems”. I do not get the part that installing safes = “the last thing they need is another one”.
Lets sack 50% of the workforce, who is not Doctors and get the Doctors to do the work that they now have assistants for, like typing in their findings directly into the computer-based filing-system. Today when you visit a Doctor they have a nurse (surely well-trained) who type in what the Doctor dictates. Of course Doctors & Nurses will be angry.
The hospital safes will create more problems than they solve. These things are made of metal and placed into already not too spacious rooms, people will bump into them all the time. Add injury to insult…
Patients will forget the code all the time, more work for the staff.
The safes require regular maintenance, including change of batteries, etc. More waste of money.
Look around in any hospital, you’ll see where money is really needed. Safes will not improve conditions there.