Professional opinion was shocked when István Mikola, Fidesz's former minister of health, appeared in a photo in Népszabadság alongside Gábor Kollányi, the president of HospInvest and Mihály Kökény, the MSZP president of the parliamentary committee for public health, who is regarded as the main lobbyist for HospInvest. Local Fidesz groups have been fighting the company for years as they are against hospitals falling into the hands of the company for virtually nothing for decades to come. In Eger, Fidesz has been working with the staff of the hospital in an attempt to find a legal way in which the contract could be declared invalid. In Kazincbarcika, they sought to block the hospital from coming under HospInvest's management by initiating a referendum. Presumably this attempt was not successful because of the invalidity of the referendum, and the tender was put up again.

After this, it was not only the supporters of the opposition party who were baffled but those of the left-wing too, when according to Népszabadság Mikola said, "I know nothing about the hospital's »struggle for freedom« in Eger (.....), there is a lot of tension surrounding HospInvest (....), according to public opinion they appear to be the black sheep, because the others are not even visible although there are some among them whom I regard as being far more dangerous". Articles are being written in the newspapers about what has happened to Fidesz and why they are saying the opposite of the position they previously had held.

Who is the Black Sheep?

The events that took place in Kiskunhalas provoked a more vehement reaction within Fidesz than outside of it. The leadership of the party has also been dealing with this affair and Viktor Orbán has requested a report from the local members of Fidesz on what happened in the town. The party president planned to inform Fidesz in Eger that Mikola's statements reported in the press were not a reflection of the party's position since Fidesz opposes the functional privatisation of hospitals and does not support profit-orientated companies taking over in-patient institutions. However, it will only be possible to ascertain the consequences of a "local manager" not representing the position of the party when Mikola and Orbán meet and discuss the issue. We have been informed that the party president would like it to be clarified whether or not the former minister has any kind of "investment" in HospInvest that would explain his views. However, a meeting between the two had still not taken place by the time we went to press because Mikola had gone on holiday; leaving only a brief message to our newspaper that he would be happy to make a statement on his return.

One reason why the events in Kiskunhalas stirred such feelings was because the town hospital is HospInvest's flagship. In 2004 they won the rights to manage the hospital for twenty years, and the company justified the deal by referring to the town's lack of money to develop the hospital. However, The State Audit Office established that the company had no money either since it had to carry out development by recourse to credit - which it paid off from health insurance funding - but it was only able to fulfil its undertaking in a piecemeal fashion. The company itself admitted that it was unable to fulfil its obligations and thus requested a modification to be made to the contract.

However, since 2006 the local government of the town had a Fidesz majority rather than a socialist one. The opposition party has been attacking the HospInvest type of privatisation model for years, and moreover, in Kiskunhalas it was the company that was in breach of contract, and the local government did not dissolve it. If they had done so, the company could not have won the tender in Eger, and could not have even entered into the tendering process in Kazincbarcika. Fidesz in Kiskunhalas justified its decision by citing local interest; dissolving the contract would have resulted in a financial burden of one and an half billion forints because of the outstandingly disadvantageous conditions. Thus, they modified the document and made it utterly plain that they would dissolve the new contract at once if HospInvest did not fulfil its requirements.

The company, which is Hungary's market leader in hospital management, organised a nice little celebration around the modification of the contract inviting István Mikola and Mihály Kökény (the latter's appearance was no surprise since Gábor Kollányi, the president of HospInvest, had himself been photographed together with the prime minister some weeks ago), as well as nurses from Eger in order to show them what had been achieved in Kiskunhalas. They combined all of this with the customary Semmelweis-day bonus distribution, thus the slightest criticism from the Fidesz guest would have spoiled the party. But István Mikola did not want to be a party pooper.

The network of companies

Of course this only partly explains what happened. Mikola does in fact have that certain "investment" in HospInvest.  In the past, two companies took over the hospital in Kiskunhalas: HospInvest and Halas-Med Ltd., which belongs to the same group. Among the latter's founders is the MaMMa Clinic Shareholding Company, which specialises in screening for breast cancer, the present name of which is MaMMa Health Zrt., for which István Mikola was a member of the company supervisory committee at the time of its foundation. Furthermore, a founding owner of HospInvest was Szilvia Mádai, who, through her ex-husband, was related to Mikola and one of the owners of MaMMa Zrt. The privatisation of the hospital in Kiskunhalas was a protracted process and when the deal was finally made Mikola was no longer a member of the supervisory committee and MaMMa and Szilvia Mádai had also pulled out of the companies of HospInvest.

The appearance of Fidesz's health politician in Kiskunhalas took place at a crucially important moment. In the preceding years, privatisation had been escalating because of cutbacks. Neither the local governments nor the state has money for development and in many places machines and instruments had deteriorated to the point of being unusable. This was the subject of an interview in our newspaper last week with Lajos Papp, a heart surgeon, who had earlier considered the operational privatisation of his clinic. The process is spreading ever more rapidly. At the beginning of 2004 HospInvest did not have one single privatised hospital, while today the group runs every existing hospital in Heves County and privatisation will shortly be steamrolling its way into Borsod County too.

A tender was announced again in Kazincbarcika and a feasibility study is being carried out in Ózd, i.e. these two hospitals will also become part of the HospInvest empire. Of course it is possible that other chains will be built and Medcenter Ltd., which runs the department of radiology in the Borsod County hospital, will be the winner, or indeed the Debrecen University of Arts and Sciences, which recently acquired the right to manage the Mátra Institute of Health from the Ministry of Health. As István Mikola put it, there really is a lot of competition going on for hospitals and therefore local governments no longer give away operational rights for 20 to 30 years for free as they did in the recent past. However, there are no large sums involved here - the largest amount so far being the 100 million forints that was paid to HospInvest in Eger.

Acid poured on cars

On seeing Mikola's statement István Herman, the president of Fidesz in Heves County told our newspaper: "I was not exactly on cloud nine". In Eger a real battle is raging around the hospital. The two leaders of the "defenders of the hospital" - which is what the healthcare staff who have not signed a contract with HospInvest have dubbed themselves - had their cars damaged with a corrosive liquid on the day the statement was made. (The company distanced itself from the affair and offered 100 thousand forints to anyone who could help find the perpetrators.) HospInvest should have taken over the running of the hospital on 1^st July but was unable to do so because of the lack of staff. Thus, a strange stalemate has developed:  the health workers are not willing to work for the company and so it cannot take over the hospital, while at the same time, the local government with its socialist majority, has not dissolved the contract with HospInvest.

HospInvest has stated that even if it is not able to come to an agreement with the hospital staff, there are still 120 days until the contract has to be drawn up. It is typical of the course of debates that when Kálmán Nagy, KDNP's (Christian Democratic People's Party) MP stated that HospInvest should leave Eger, in his statement delivered to our newspaper Gábor Deák, the HospInvest vice-president, said that Nagy, who is an excellent oncologist and patriot, should have called him if he was unable to find his way out of the legal labyrinth. "We know each other. A year ago he sought me out to help him organise the operations of the stem cell bank in Miskolc municipal hospital into a private service," argued the vice-president.

Private detective, Mária Radio and privatisation

"The commandment is written on our hearts, we must proclaim the Lord- whether it is convenient or not in this time and place. If your acquaintances know about and listen to Mária Radio, that is already a serious step towards God, and a serious apostolic act from you and help for Mary to lead your soul to Jesus," purports Tamás Szabó, one of HospInvest's owners and the president of Mária Radio, in his letter written to the listeners in which he asks then to mark the radio as their acquaintance on the social networking site iWiW and thus make the Catholic station more popular. Szabó was the privatisation minister in the Antall government. He set himself up in health business last year, when his company, Ispotály Ltd., which operates hospital pharmacies, became part of the HospInvest empire. Gyula Stocz became one of the shareholders in HospInvest also last year (through Stola Ltd.). As we know, László Kapolyi entrusted Gyula Stotz to watch Fidesz's president Viktor Orbán through his limited partnership called Finder.

          Privatised hospitals in Hungary

1. Budapest Hungarian Spine Therapy Centre                       Buda Health Centre
2. Körmed, Tapolca, Mezőtúr                                              Medisyst Ltd.
3. Kiskunhalas, Eger, Gyöngyös, Hatvan, Parádfürdő            HospInvest
4. Siklós                                                                            Mega-Logistic Zrt.
5. Várpalota                                                                       Kulcs PalotaHosp Ltd.
6. Debrecen Radiology Clinic                                               International Health Centre Ltd.
7. Miskolc Oncology Clinic                                                  Medcenter Ltd.
8. Nagyatád                                                                       Medical Investment Ltd.
   
   Future privatisations
    
9. Kazincbarcika
10. Ózd