Hungary’s government remains committed to its reform of the health-care sector, one of the key pillars of which is the Healthy Budapest Programme (EBP), the human resources minister said on Tuesday. Under the EBP, the government is spending some 700 billion forints (EUR 2.0bn) on upgrading hospitals and outpatient clinics in and around Budapest, Miklós Kásler said. Since 2010, the Fidesz-led government has spent 1,700 billion forints more on health care than the previous Socialist governments and has approved a previously unseen range of hospital developments, he said. In contrast, the previous governments had cut the health-care budget by 600 billion forints, wanted to privatise the sector, introduced co-payments for doctor’s visits and hospital stays, shut down hospitals and closed the National Psychiatric and Neurological Institute (OPNI), he said.