Organize into a litigation association - this is how the MOK encourages general practitioners, who are required by law to have a total of two on-call days per month in the new on-call system.

GPs who have received threatening letters from district chief physicians for not voluntarily signing a contract with the National Ambulance Service on the new on-call system should form a legal association - Gyula Kincses, president of the Hungarian Medical Chamber, urged the doctors in a live Facebook video on March 22. which he held together with Péter Álmos, the vice president of the chamber. In a letter sent to Mandiner long before the event, the organization drew attention to the fact that, although the information is public, it is considered to be for the members of the medical chamber, "so only the members of the MOK have the opportunity to ask questions and comment".

"Colleagues in two counties received threatening letters that those who do not sign or do not start taking care of it can expect a fine of up to five million forints and even the revocation of their right to practice"

Kinces started his speech. He added,

"it must be clearly stated" that what is being spread in the media, according to which the IOC threatens doctors, is absolutely not true, in fact, he believes that doctors are threatened either by the authority or by the collegial leader.

As Mandiner also reported, although the chamber has no specific objection to the on-call system, they asked the general practitioners not to sign their on-call contract with the National Ambulance Service (since their task is to organize the new on-call system, so the doctors contract with them). After that, the events accelerated, on February 25 the news exploded like a bombshell that the chamber had brought one of the county's general practitioner professional managers under ethical proceedings after he had - ex officio - given information about the new on-call structure to his colleagues. The case was even a topic in Government Information,

Gergely Gulyás, the minister in charge of the Prime Minister's Office, stated that the MOK's procedure endangers care, which is unprincipled, intolerable and unacceptable..

After that, the Ministry of the Interior presented a proposal to amend the law on professional chambers operating in the health sector, requesting an urgent hearing from the Parliament. The proposal was voted on by the Parliament the very next day, as a result of which the mandatory medical chamber membership was abolished, and the ongoing ethical procedures can be conducted by the Health Science Council instead of the IOC.

During Wednesday's IOC briefing, Kincses also referred to the threat to care: he emphasized that primary care is the most important segment of the care system, therefore "any aggressive step that makes family doctors feel insecure or encourages them to retire rather endangers primary care ". Népszava reported on what the IOC president called an "aggressive step". The newspaper reported that in the counties of Győr-Moson-Sopron and Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg, the chief medical officers of the districts sent out letters to general practitioners in which, referring to their legal obligation to cooperate, they were called upon to undertake twice a month from four in the afternoon to ten in the evening on call. According to the newspaper's information, those who resist are threatened with a fine ranging from HUF 30,000 to HUF 5 million and the revocation of their operating license in the decision. However, the newspaper did not publish the "threatening letter" itself.

Source: Mandarin

Featured image: MTI