The interior ministry has submitted a bill aimed at changing the law governing the Hungarian Medical Chamber (MOK). The fast-tracked bill is aimed at eliminating opportunities for MOK to “abuse its powers”, while it would also abolish mandatory chamber membership for doctors and transfer ongoing code of ethics procedures against members of the chamber to the Health Science Council, the ministry said in a statement. The ministry accused the chamber of trammelling the constitutional right to safe health services, and insisted that the body was “abusing its powers by pressing doctors not to sign new contracts concerning on-call services”. It added that the chamber “must not threaten to terminate the membership” of doctors wishing to carry out their duties.
The Hungarian Medical Chamber said in response that the government had launched a “brutal attack” against it, adding that MOK would seek all possible legal avenues of appeal. The chamber head, Gyula Kincses, told a press conference the government had based its “attack” on “lies and false information”. He added that the government was attempting to undermine the independent chamber that represented doctors on a “shameful” pretext.