The Minister of State for Health is confident that this year will see the formation of the National Patients’ Forum, which will be composed of patients’ organisations in Hungary. At a conference in Budapest organised last Friday by the body’s preparatory board and another association, Miklós Szócska also said that the draft decree on creation of the Forum is in the public administration checking phase.
Mr. Szócska said that the leadership of the Secretariat has formed a good partnership relationship with the individual patients’ organisations and has been able to work openly and fairly with the board of the Patients’ Forum, and he hopes that this work will continue in a similar manner in the future institutional context. He also said that he is open to the idea of an institution which has been closed being reopened as an incubator house for patients’ organisations.
At the conference Mr. Szócska introduced Krisztina Novák, who on 1 November was appointed director of the relaunched National Centre for Documentation and the Rights of Patients, Healthcare Users and Children. Mr. Szócska said that this also shows that the assertion of patients’ rights has been raised to a visible level.
Dr. Novák welcomed the creation of the Patients’ Forum, with which she plans to work in close co-operation. She said that she is confident that under her leadership her organisation will be one which asserts patients’ rights to the maximum, assisting realisation of the Semmelweis Plan, and thus creating a patient-centred health care system.
(Office of the Human Rights Working Group)