Hungarian women with implants petition non-existent bill

A group of women with breast implants have attacked the Ministry of Health about a purported Hungarian bill that would make annual breast examinations for women with implants mandatory, and on their dime, wrote news portal index.hu; however no such bill exists. The Society of Women Who Have Had Plastic Surgery (Plasztikázott Nők Társasága) recently sent an open letter to Ágnes Horváth, the Minister of Health, claiming that compulsory annual check-ups are "humiliating and discriminative" and that women cannot afford to foot the bill.

The letter may be a misdirected response to an EU regulation requesting careful checks of implants before they are put into the body, since there is no law or bill concerning checks of implants already in the patient's body, a representative for the ministry said.

The womens' letter claimed that if the checks are not performed by doctors but quality control personnel, then "women's basic personal rights would be violated, as quality control personnel would make a decision about the tightness of their breasts."

In response, a representative for the ministry cautioned every woman to take personal responsibility in keeping her body healthy and her implants checked by a doctor regularly. The costs for this care should be paid by the patient, as the National Health Fund does not pay for breast surgery either, the spokesperson added.

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