Angry patients attack Hungarian doctors for the immunity certificate
Hungarian family doctors and their assistants are practically being attacked by all those angry patients who, despite having been vaccinated, still have not received their immunity certificates.
As summer is getting closer and half of the country wants to recuperate last year’s summer holiday, the immunity certificate gains even more importance. Especially as
more and more countries accept the plastic card in return for free entry into the country.
As Daily News Hungary reported, foreigners are having issues with obtaining the plastic card.
In reality, a huge number of Hungarian citizens has to face the same problem.
Many Hungarian patients who were inoculated already, are still waiting for the certificate that would grant them some freedom. Moreover, even health care workers complain about the same problem.
In a lot of cases, we talk about several months of waiting.
Many Hungarians think that their family doctor can help. In vain, though, as these professionals can not see in their system whether a patient’s card has already been manufactured, on the way or still needs to be made. Even those offices that deal with documents issued by the government send the patients to their family doctor to ask for further information; as the offices say, those who did not get their immunity certificate are not in their system. Many doctors asked by 24.hu say that they receive 5-10 calls a day about the issue. It is especially challenging to check these information and find all data needed to produce the certificate already uploaded in the system. However, they still cannot do anything for the patients since, as mentioned above, doctors can not see any information related to the production or the delivery of the plastic cards.
Furthermore, Gergely Gulyás, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office and CecÃlia Müller, Surgeon General, also pushed patients towards finding out the missing information this way. When in reality, it takes only a couple of minutes to find out whether someone inoculated is not registered in the electronic health care system, and thus his card is yet to be manufactured and sent. In case someone does not have access to this system, that is when he should ask for the help of a family doctor.
Ten phone calls a day related to the matter does not sound much, but it is a huge extra effort for doctors who already have so much to do.
They treat patients during the week in their regular schedule; they vaccinate people often by doing overtime; most of the doctors even inoculate on the weekends.
The process, already on its own, comes with extra work as doctors need to decide who gets which jab; they are writing text messages to patients with the help of their assistants on where to go and where to pick up the vaccine.
Unfortunately, there are many spots in the system where something can go wrong. In the ideal case, once the vaccine was registered in the electronic system, the Ministry for Home Affairs automatically sends the plastic card in 8-10 days. As the electronic system can be checked at home by anyone who has access to it, and most working Hungarians do, it would only take them a minute to see. Nevertheless, many do not even know about this possibility and decide to go directly to the family doctor. But as I said earlier, doctors can only see registration in the system but nothing about the actual state of issuing the immunity certificate. Not that they would be able to do anything about it, as
the doctor who vaccinated the patient in the hospital or at a vaccination point had to administer it.
Due to the stress doctors have been having to endure daily, especially since the vaccination started, sometimes they mistype the identification number, and that is why they can not find the information they are looking for. It can also happen that the doctor inoculating the patient did not register the patient for some reason.
Nevertheless, it is not the negligence of the family doctor, nor it should be his job to straighten things out.
Even some health care workers assisting in the vaccination process, who were already inoculated with both jabs weeks or months ago, say that they are still in need of receiving their plastic card. They made phone calls, wrote emails and even tried through the online system. One of them even said to 24.hu that
she was told her card had been sent already in March, but she does not know where it disappeared to as she definitely did not receive it.
Another assistant was vaccinated at a vaccination point back in February. She already notified those in charge through the system over a week ago, but no reply arrived.
These poor health care workers are under an extreme amount of stress ever since the start of the pandemic. Due to the enormous amount of work, they have not been able to have a day off practically since last year. It further stresses them out that
now that they are at least vaccinated, they would have the chance to take some days off and have a rest, be with their families or see their friends. But they are unable to do so as they still lack the immunity certificate,
when many of those they personally vaccinated some weeks ago are going out happily in possession of their card.
Source: 24.hu