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

Let the Figures Talk

employing nuns again after forty years. The separation and reopening of the irgalmas-rend (Merciful Order) Hospital in Buda is also in process.

We must also take a look at some negative phenomena. Life expectancy characterizes the standard of health care, which in Hungary is 73 for women and 65 for men-not a very flattering statistic on a European scale. Sociological causes play a great part in this.

Environmental and civilizational risk factors are more or less the same as in Western Europe and cause a lot of problems. The number of cases of asthma has multiplied ten times in the past fifteen years. Recent statistics show that there are thirty-five thousand road accidents annually, in which two and a half thousand people are killed.

Unfortunately alcohol consumption is fairly high as well. The number of alcoholics in medical records alone is substantial (around seventy thousand), but reliable calculations reveal over six hundred thousand in Hungary.

A large scale preventive and healing campaign was launched against smoking in the United States. The frequency of certain illnesses such as heart attacks diminished spectacularly. Although there is a law in force in Hungary against advertising tobacco products (and alcohol) it seemingly does little to change the bad habits of an entire country. An alarming figure: every tenth primary school student and every third secondary school student has tried smoking or has become a smoker.

Drugs have only recently become the source of serious social tension. Our country lies in a “dangerous” position, at the intersection of legal and illegal commercial crossroads.

Let us round up this chapter with some happier pieces of information. High technology is becoming increasingly important in Hungary, thus in health care, too. Relative to the population Hungary has probably the most lithotripsy machines. The number of ultrasound instruments, computed tomographs (CT) and other sophisticated medical instruments is increasing rapidly. The number of tourists visiting the country to receive treatment is increasing. Visitors from more than forty countries come to Hungary for special therapy.

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