Hungary Faces Court Case For Emptying Hospitals In Pandemic (Worthy News Investigation)

By Stefan J. Bos, Special Correspondent Worthy News reporting from Budapest, Hungary

(Worthy News) – A human rights group supports a European court case against Hungary for “failing to protect its citizens” and “causing death” by emptying hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) says the government ordered hospitals to vacate over half of their beds to prepare for the intake of COVID-19 patients.

The HHC told Worthy News that it turned to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, on behalf of a woman whose mother died due to the controversial policy.

It did not reveal the name of the plaintiff in Saturday’s statement, under data protection policies. However, it was believed to be Lilla Ilona Szeleczki.

Szeleczki earlier told media that she was given less than a day’s notice that her 79-year-old mother was coming home from a Budapest hospital.

NO MEDICAL SUPPORT

She had dementia, chronic pneumonia, and a kidney tumor. Szeleczki said she didn’t receive any medical support, “and had to Google” how to administer her mother’s injections. She recalled that her mother suffered inhumanly for six long days in an apartment in a tower block on the edge of Budapest.

The frail older woman, who reportedly cried every night, eventually fell unconscious and was returned to the hospital on April 21. She passed away the following day.

Szeleszki’s mother was among hundreds of seriously ill patients who were removed in an army-led operation, and many may have died, Worthy News learned Saturday.

“In mid-April, on the instructions of Minister [of Human Resources] Miklós Kásler, 50 and then 60 percent of the hospital beds had to be vacated within a few days. Hundreds of patients reportedly had to be repatriated. Plenty of suffering people did not receive professional care,” the HHC explained in a statement.

Among them was the “elderly woman who was struggling with unimaginable pain at home for six days. She died after being taken back to the hospital,” the HHC confirmed to Worthy News.

“As no legal steps could be taken in Hungary, her daughter now turns to the European Court of Human Rights for justice after this tragedy. With the support of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee,” the HHC added. “There are legal consequences if a European state leaves its citizens without help.”

‘RIGHT TO LIFE’

The group said it would argue armed with medical records that Hungary’s government violated the deceased rights under Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. “The Strasbourg court will have to rule on whether the cessation of hospital care for a seriously ill and incapacitated person and the lack of other specialized help violated the deceased’s right to life and dignified treatment.”

Officials say Hungary had around 4,000 reported infections and close to 600 deaths on a population of nearly 10 million people. That left the hospitals virtually empty with seriously sick patients forced to return home claim activists and whistleblowers.

Patients were reportedly discharged without medical supplies to families who did not know how to care for them. The HHC has come under criticism for cooperating with whistleblower Athina Németh who claimed to be an ambulance officer in Budapest but later failed to show her medical credentials.

She had told reporters that of 10 patients she cared for, nine died after being sent home. One of her patients was sent back with an open stomach wound, another with a stoma bag. The HHC defended Németh’s intentions and investigation, which included video footage of patients. The group said the debate about her credentials “distracts from the fundamental question of what impact the April national evacuations had on very sick people in need of care.”

Hungary’s government has denied wrongdoing. It says its decision to discharge patients was based on sound medical and scientific advice. Activists view the policy as part of coronavirus measures that allowed the autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to rule by decree.

But Minister of Justice Judit Varga told Worthy News and a small group of reporters that the policy had enabled Hungary to have one of the lowest infection rates in Europe.

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