[Transitional health system and health status in Hungary]

The road towards political freedom has been painful to the Hungarian population. After 1989, the per capita GDP has sharply decreased, and the 1989 level has been reached again only a decade later. During the period, a great number of reforms have been launched in the health field: privatisation, adoption of a Bismarckian-like model, decentralization, performance-search measures... One cannot say however that these reforms have been successful. Low priority for health, vastage of the scarce resources allocated to the health care system, conflicts for power between the groups and institutions ... have seriously weakened the performance of all the system. Simultaneously, the financial burden charged to the patients has increased and the unhealthy lifestyle of the population has not decreased. In its 2000 Report on the world health, WHO has noted that Hungary is ranked 36th for per capita GDP, 59th for per capita health expenditures but 105th for the performance of its health care system.