'Doctors by Fax' or cleaner production: the problem of prevention in post-communist Hungary

In 1989, approximately half of the medical visits in Hungary were to factory doctors. Two thousand physicians in the National Health Service were assigned to factories and all medical students served in factories as part of their training. There were certainly problems in the system, but workers preferred the factory doctors to other physicians based in communities or districts; and factory physicians knew about workplace hazards, knew what production processes looked like, and were mandated to deal with work environment problems as well as provide other kinds of patient care. With the reform of the National Health Service, the role of factory physician was eliminated, although companies could institute their own medical services (and sometimes employed the previous medical staff). Later legislation required companies to have access to occupational medical services, but critics have called the new system "Doctors by Fax." We discuss the adequacy of the new legislative requirements (including mandatory health and safety committees) and report on new issues in worker health and safety that have emerged post "reform." Finally, the possibility of linking the prevention of occupational disease and injury prevention to "cleaner production" in Hungary is discussed.