Health Systems in Transition - Hungary - World Health Organization ...

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Health systems in transition Hungary
Community-based social services are a special form of primary social care
for four target groups: psychiatric patients, people with drug addictions, people
with disabilities (support services) and homeless persons (street social work).
These services aim at providing care locally (in the community) for those who
do not need to be admitted to residential institutions (see Table 5.3). Every
municipality with more than 10 000 inhabitants has to provide community
care, but street social work is compulsory only in municipalities with more than
50 000 inhabitants (Mester, 2010).
Table 5.3
Community-based services (recipients per 10 000), 2007
Community care for psychiatric patients 4.6
Community care for addictions 6.9
Support service 18.5
Street social work 10.8
Source: Mester, 2010.
Under daytime social care, local governments provide care, social or
psychological support to the aforementioned population groups and to elderly
people, but the recipient spends the night at their own home. The provision of
this service is obligatory for municipalities with more than 3000 inhabitants.
The most frequently utilized daytime social care service is the club for elderly
people: 1221 clubs were visited regularly in 2007. This is equivalent to 177.2
recipients per 10 000 population aged over 60 years. Daytime social care for
homeless persons is available in the form of daytime shelters or soup kitchens.
In 2007 the average number of daily admissions was 7543 to the former (92
institutions) and 3923 to the latter (41 institutions). Daytime care was attended
by 3986 people with disabilities, 1040 psychiatric patients and 1086 people with
addictions (Mester, 2010).
Providers of institutional social care in residential homes can be categorized
in four groups based on the function of the institution (1993/1, Articles 66 to 85).
Long-term residential social institutions provide care for those who are unable
to live on their own because of their age, health or social status (residential
homes for elderly people, for people with physical or mental disabilities, and
for impoverished people). Rehabilitation residential social institutions provide
care for those who have the prospect of regaining self-sufficiency, at least
partially. Transitory residential social institutions, with the exception of nighttime
shelters, provide residential care for a maximum of one year. A special
form of institutional care takes place in community homes, which provide