It seems that the pandemic has evoked extreme behaviour in patients, sometimes even in general practitioners. There are a lot of patients, the workload is intense, and GPs are stressed and under-appreciated.
“Dear XY,
Since you do not live in the area of my practice, I no longer wish to be your general practitioner. Please check with your local GP or another GP of your choice. PS: I cannot identify with your Facebook post on a professional level, and because of that, our doctor-patient relationship built on trust is over.
(Signature, date, stamp)”
This letter was written by a GP from Üllő to one of her former patients who complained that patients are allowed to wait in the waiting room in Vecsés but are forced to wait in a tent in Üllő.
The doctor read the Facebook post (the post is no longer available) and “fired” the patient in the letter quoted above.
The patient told Telex that this was the first conflict between them in 20 years, and the general practitioner “fired” her partner too.
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However, it also has to be taken into consideration that patients are becoming increasingly aggressive, and general practitioners in Üllő are frustrated and at a “breaking point”. The doctors have even attended the Üllő municipality’s meeting to ask for help.
The patients have turned on their doctors in Üllő,
Dr József Kókay, the senior president of general practitioners, described the situation. According to Dr Kókay, the situation is so bad that doctors often go home crying after work. He even quoted an example to emphasise the seriousness of the current situation. A young man in his twenties went to Dr Halasi a few days ago with the symptoms of high fever, a cough, back pain, and a runny nose (the typical symptoms of the coronavirus infection).
He has received no vaccination and has no intention of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine because he does not trust doctors. When the doctor wanted to test him, the young man started shouting and swearing, then left.
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According to Dr Kókay, general practitioners have to tolerate aggressive situations like this that undermine their dignity almost every day. As far as the waiting time is concerned, the doctors have explained that due to epidemiological rules, only a certain number of people are allowed to wait in the waiting room, so those who arrive later have to stand outside, but they always try to pay attention to elderly patients and families with children.
Telex has also asked other general practitioners to see if the situation was similarly bad in the capital. A GP from the 3rd district of Budapest confirmed that
there have been more aggressive patients lately, and most unvaccinated people and virus deniers do not want to follow the prescribed epidemiological rules because “there is no pandemic”.
Meanwhile, the fourth wave and the mortality rates are at their peak in Hungary. The number of new infections was already lower last week than a week earlier.
Well, it’s good to hear that people ate starting to wake up.
It’s sad to read all the loaded words implying that these patients are crazy. Like ”deniers”.
Our health care workers deserve our respect and support. No excuse for violence against them.
This situation is no different from other similar situations when a very small minority causes the problems. It has always been the trash causing the problems, it always is.
I can relate to Dr problems here in Hungary. I live in a small village near Kaposvar and the GP for this village is not very well liked either. Why because she and her nurse are very rude and unprofessional acting for someone supposed to be a trained physician. I was always respectful to her and her nurse and never did anything to deserve their disrespect. I cannot have a Physician that is adversarial in their demeanor. For that reason I no longer visit the local clinic and have found a private practice elsewhere that actually cares about their patients. I think that some Drs really are burned out but many of them are just unhappy people in life and should consider retiring if they cannot treat patients like they are human beings.
I have great respect for our healthcare workers, doctors and nurses alike. They are overworked and underpaid. My wife shows our appreciation for their work… We call it “hála pénz” and it is “hála pénz” because we are grateful for their dedicated service.
They always treated us with consideration and respect. We also used private and semi-private health care.