Hungary's doctors warn of soaring coronavirus deaths ahead

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Doctors in Hungary are warning that a lack of medical staff qualified to treat coronavirus patients in intensive care units could soon lead to soaring deaths and a breakdown in the country’s fragile health care system despite the government’s expensive medical equipment purchases.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban last week announced the country's strictest pandemic restrictions to date to combat rapidly rising coronavirus hospitalizations and deaths, predicting that without the measures Hungary’s health care system had only a “50% chance” of coping with the pandemic.

The government has ordered hospitals to expand ICUs to accommodate the rapid rise in COVID-19 patients and earlier this year purchased 16,000 ventilators at a cost of 842 million euros for the expected surge this fall.

“All the technical equipment needed ... is available,” Orban said last week.

But Hungarian Chamber of Doctors has warned that the number of ICU beds and ventilators are overshadowed by a lack of qualified doctors and nurses to treat ICU patients.

“Government communication pushes that we have 16,000 ventilators and are capable of creating 4,000 intensive care beds, but this is just not true,” said Peter Almos, vice-president of the Hungarian Chamber of Doctors. “You have the beds, but you don’t have the nurses and doctors who can treat (the patient) on the bed, so they just lie there."

New restrictive measures that took effect last week — including an 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew, mandatory mask-wearing in public, a 10-person ceiling on family gatherings and remote learning for high school and university students — were taken “too late,” Almos said.

Hungary has 2,000 specialists for ICU wards and a similar number of ICU nurses. But...