Health minister imposes controls on ambulance service

Health Minister Ágnes Horváth has ordered the National Ambulance Service to impose a freeze on new hirings and on paying non-essential bills from September 1, as its debts exceed Ft 1.5 billion. In addition it may not pay any bonuses to staff.

Ambulance service spokesman Pál Győrfi said the measures will not endanger ambulance services.

Fidesz spokesman Péter Szíjjártó said the main question is not to which hospital ambulances will take patients but whether they will take them at all. The withdrawal of funds, the dismissal of health care staff, the occurrence of deaths due to the shortcomings of the new system and the latest measure all indicate that Horváth and the ministry are unfit to run health care, he said.

The most outrageous aspect, he continued, is that Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány is holding talks in China on upgrading Chinese health care.

Fidesz will propose that Parliament's health care committee discuss the situation at today's meeting, as the ambulance service is near bankruptcy. Szíjjártó proposed that dismissed staff members should be rehired and that the Ft 250 billion withdrawn from health care should be given back.

The above story is just one of more than two dozen published today by Hungary Around the Clock, the most comprehensive source of daily English-language news about Hungary. For a free trial of HATC, click here. Hungarian news sources include Népszabadság; Magyar Hírlap; Világgazdaság; Napi Gazdaság; Magyar Nemzet; Népszava; Kossuth Rádió news and Hungarian television's nightly news broadcast.

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