Nemes János: Healing Budapest - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1993)

Let the Figures Talk

every year. Clinics treat 22.5 million patients annually. Out-patient departments perform 2.3 million dental treatments, and X-ray departments diagnose 1.7 million patients. Lung screening and dental care in Budapest schools is exemplary.

There are about two hundred pharmacies in the capital. The exact figure cannot be given, however, because of the great number of private pharmacies that have opened in the past few months.

Although the private sector has entered the hospital scene, there are still only a few small, private clinics. Our health care institutions are predominantly owned by local authorities, and are sponsored by the state. Except for a few chronic wards there have been no church- owned hospitals in Budapest in the past four decades. Only recently have some hospitals been given back to their original church owners. Thus in 1992 the Hungarian Reformed Church was given back the Bethesda Children’s Hospital (which was once called Apáthy). St Francis, a hospital for internal diseases is maintained jointly by St John’s Hospital, owned by the council and the Catholic Church. Some of the wards of the National Institute for Rheumathology and Physiotherapy (Országos Reuma- és Fizikoterápiás Intézet - ORFI) are

At the children’s dentist

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