The Hungarian government has announced that it will increase wages and offer scholarships to boost the number of nurses.
A statement released by the human resources ministry states that the government has been channeling money back to healthcare since 2010 in order to compensate for what had been taken away from the sector previously.
MTI adds that more respect has been shown to healthcare workers and efforts have been made to secure a supply of new nurses and doctors. This includes wage increases in order to make the sector more attractive to young people.
Referring to former prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány, the ministry said in its statement that “in the Gyurcsány-era the healthcare sector was brought to the verge of collapse, tens of thousands of workers were fired and chased away from Hungary, the replacement of workers was not guaranteed and vocational training institutions were closed down, making any career in healthcare unpredictable.”
According to the statement, there are currently just below 70 nurses per 10,000 people. In line with a comprehensive wage increase plan up to 2022, the basic wage of skilled workers in healthcare will increase gradually by 72 percent.
Under the “I will become a nurse” scheme, 4 billion forints (EUR 12.1m) will be spent by the end of this year to offer scholarships to 3,200 nursing students, and the government will spend another 8.8 billion forints on building and modernizing nurses’ hostels.