Eight hundred babies were born every year in the Dr. Bugyi István hospital in Szentes, which made them the institution with the highest number of births in the region. Last year it was restructured with HUF 80 million in state aid into a family-friendly concept.
Mothers giving birth in the hospital created social media in their group they reported that they had been trying for months to call doctors at the city hospital, and to this end, a demonstration of hundreds of people and an Internet campaign took place in the city in November.
On 21 December, the official letter sent by the hospital director to Mayor Mihály Szentes Kalmár was published on Facebook, informing the city administration that from 1 January 2023, due to the shortage of specialists, obstetric and the gynecology department will be suspended and new mothers and women in need of care will be sent to Szeged, Hódmezővásárhely and will be redirected to Kecskemét, transportation will be carried out by the national ambulance service. It is still available to patients at Szentes hospital
- same day surgical care
- the gynecological specialist order,
- pregnancy counseling,
- the mobile specialist medical service
– mentioned the head of the institute in his letter, at the same time as a one-day intervention recalls that negotiations are currently underway with the Csongrád-Csanád Hódmezővásárhely-Mako County Health Center regarding its delivery.
Szentes hospital on its website the decision on the suspension of maternity care, signed by Cecília Müller, was also published. The chief medical officer justified his decision by stating that Mihály Kalmár informed him in mid-December that, due to a lack of specialists in obstetrics and gynecology, they could no longer provide hospital care at the Szentes maternity hospital. Dr. Bugyi István hospital has been trying for months to find a head physician and a specialist for its obstetrics department through a public job advertisement.
There are 27,000 people living in Szentes, 60,000 including the agglomeration. From next year, expectant mothers will only be able to give birth in Hódmezővásárhely, half an hour away by car, or in Szeged and Kecskemét, an hour away.
In the Szentes obstetrics Facebook group, several mothers wrote that they cried when they heard the news, according to their experience, obstetric care in the city was of a high standard – writes A Napi.hu.
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