The Uzsoki Hospital is in Budapest’s 14th district, Zugló, represented by Ákos Hadházy, a well-known Hungarian anti-corruption politician, in the Hungarian National Assembly. Mr Hadházy shared documents that a German tourist had to pay EUR 1,650 for VIP care in July in the hospital, a fee higher than what German private hospitals demand for similar treatment and examination. He suspects fraud, so he pressed charges against the healthcare institution, which no longer communicates with him.
German tourist chose VIP care instead of waiting for hours
Mr Hadházy shared the details of the suspicious issue on his official Facebook page. The MP of Zugló wrote that a German tourist, being in Budapest with her husband on a boat trip, struggled with high blood pressure and headache. Therefore, an ambulance doctor recommended that she should visit the Uzsoki Hospital. There, the employees offered them two options. The tourists could wait 6-8 hours to get proper medical help or pay for VIP care. They chose the latter, and the doctor made a head CT and X-ray on the woman, Hadházy cleared.
First, the hospital wanted them to pay in cash on the spot without getting an invoice. However, the husband refused to do so. Later, they got an invoice via email, so they paid the EUR 1,650 examination fee. However, the insurance company of the German couple refused to reimburse the costs because the invoice did not detail what examinations the doctor conducted.
A Hungarian doctor friend of the couple living in Germany tried to help, but the hospital told her that they never issue euro invoices. That is when the issue became problematic.
Uzsoki Hospital is more expensive than German hospitals
Since the Hungarian friend could not get any details from the hospital, the couple turned to them and asked for a detailed invoice, which they received. It came to light that the Uzsoki Hospital’s VIP costs were multiple times higher than those of the private medical institutions in Germany. According to Szeretlek Magyarország, in Germany, the maximum cost of the service would have been EUR 1,000.f
The events took place in July. Since then, the hospital told Hadházy that the doctors and nurses of the hospital work at the VIP unit, but beyond their work time. Therefore, patients do not pay for the hospital but for private service providers. The service provider in contract with the organiser of the German couple’s boat trip was Smart Hospital Ltd, so the invoice was issued by them.
That company is in the ownership of a Hévíz Fidesz councillor, János Gelencsér. Hévíz is a charming small town near Lake Balaton, known for the many Russian tourists who visited it before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Hadházy believes the head CT and the X-ray were made using hospital equipment because such devices are unavailable at the VIP unit. Therefore, he suspects fraud and reported the issue to the police.
The hospital did not even try to reveal the circumstances
Hadházy criticised the hospital’s fairness since the institution failed to reveal the circumstances during an internal inquiry.
In another case, a Hungarian citizen received a date for knee replacement surgery in the Uzsoki Hospital for 2026. But after he paid HUF 2 million (EUR 4,883) to the doctor, he did the surgery at the “VIP unit”.
Hadházy slammed the process, saying that ordinary people must wait hours and sometimes even years for examination, treatment or surgery, while others can buy extra services for money. He believes that, in general, it is not the doctors or nurses who should be blamed for that business. Hadházy says the Hungarian government intentionally underfinances the sector, so hospitals must be creative to gain money.
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The whole country is going down a Fidesz drain into a cesspool of corruption. It’s become normalized – kickbacks, cash payments, inflated invoices, etc. I am watching this from the relative safety of Canada just shaking my head. I can imagine how underpayed staff are in the hospital. “Sliding money” has always existed in the Hungarian healthcare system since socialist days but this is another level.