Budapest hospital for homeless faces closure

A bitter conflict has emerged between Hungary's right-wing government and the liberal leadership in the capital Budapest over a hospital for the homeless. The hospital, operated by the Budapest Methodological Center of Social Policy, provides medical care, social services and shelter to more than 1,000 homeless people annually. With nearly 75 beds and state of the art facilities, it is the only hospital of its kind in the capital.

But Hungary's central government has ordered the city-run hospital to vacate the state-owned building where it operates, making the future uncertain for the hundreds of people receiving treatment there, and opening up a new clash with Budapest's liberal mayor. "We are not moving out," vowed the mayor, Gergely Karacsony. "They can send the police after us, they can pull us out by force, but we're not leaving on our own."

Karacsony, an outspoken opponent of Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orban, says he spent months asking government ministers for a compromise that would allow the hospital to remain or be relocated. The government says the building is needed for another healthcare facility, and it's accused the hospital of doing nothing to seek an alternative site despite having had almost a year's notice that it will have to relocate.

With Hungary's healthcare system already overburdened because of COVID-19, forcing homeless patients back onto the streets could kill them, Karacsony argues. "We would not be sending them to the street, but to their deaths," he says. Dr. Franciska Csortos, the head of in-patient care at the hospital, says discharging the patients under her care simply isn't an option. "They need hospital care," she argues. "We can't just release them. These people can't be sent to homeless shelters."

Hungary's government has long taken a hardline approach to homelessness. After two laws banning rough sleeping were struck down by Hungarian courts, the ruling Fidesz party used its majority in parliament to pass a controversial constitutional amendment in 2018, criminalising "habitual residence in a public space." Police may now issue notices to rough sleepers and force them to do community work. If a homeless person is found sleeping in a public place three times, they can be sent to prison. One of the patients, Andrea Toth, 50, says she has no idea where she'll go if the hospital closes. The government should "live and let live," she says.