The Metropolitan Municipality also launches free screening programs: the Healthy Budapest screening bus will be found at several locations throughout Budapest between May 2 and June 16. The services are free, but require prior registration (you can register at the following link: Health (budapest.hu).
Lung screening, ankle-arm index measurement, respiratory function tests, melanoma screening and laboratory tests are performed in the screening bus.
Appointments can be booked at the following locations until May 9:
From 8 a.m. today until May 17, you can book an appointment at the following locations:
(If the registration page does not load, you can open it at this link.)
The capital’s filter program is free, but our paper looked at how much the following tests would cost if they were performed by private providers:
- CT examination 20-40 thousand forints,
- Birthmark screening HUF 15-45 thousand,
- Ultrasound examination HUF 27-35 thousand,
- Chest X-ray HUF 22-62 thousand.
At the beginning of March, Gergely Karácsony gave an interview to ÉnBudapestem, in which he talked about the fact that every fourth person in Hungary dies of a disease that could have been prevented, and that while the life expectancy in Budapest is 76.7 years, in Berlin, Paris, London and Madrid over eighty.
“This means the loss of more than one million Hungarians in the last 20 years. This brings us to the end of the EU countries. Hungarian healthcare is actually a disease issue. It focuses on getting some kind of care if someone gets sick. Which you either get or you don’t.” said the mayor.
Karácsony emphasized in the interview: “Healthcare should also be about preserving health. As a voluntary task, the Budapest municipality launched a CT and MR program with the financial support of the government, with which the waiting lists can be shortened. In the case of cancer, early diagnosis is literally a matter of life and death. Hungarian healthcare could not meet the international basic requirement that ten days pass between the identification of the problem and the evaluation of the result. We want to continue this program. So far, we have helped more than 12,000 people so that they do not have to wait for examinations. We want to start screening programs based on district outpatient services”.
A few weeks ago, the mayor wrote on his social media page that he understands all the disputes and all the fights, that Budapest together with the districts provides CT and MR examinations to the citizens of the capital. Because it is true that the government took away Budapest’s health powers, it could not take away responsibility, care, and attention: “If this city is our life, then we must serve the lives of Budapest residents, the quality and length of their lives.” he noted.
The assistance will continue this year as well: based on an agreement with Semmelweis University Budapest residents with suspected cancer or cancer can also get an appointment for a CT scan outside of the queue.
“The next element of the program is about helping with recovery after the diagnosis, in technical terms this is called oncodiagnostic patient path management. This means that, in cooperation with the district specialist clinics, we help organize all the necessary examinations within 30 days, and we provide additional resources for this through the specialist clinics.”
– said Karácsony.
