How to find your GP in Hungary
When you feel ill, the first person to contact is your General Practitioner or your GP in Hungary. This person is also referred to as a “family doctor”. They are familiar with a variety of symptoms, and they can suggest treatment or send you to see a specialist. They can also send you on sick leave. But how do you find your GP?
Who is my GP in Hungary?
In Hungary, you are free to decide who you trust to be your doctor – this goes both for GPs and specialists. You can ask around for recommendations, and then choose any doctor you like. This is what many expats do, since for them it makes sense to have a GP who speaks English (or their mother tongue), and that is not something commonplace.
In line with this, you do not have a GP in Hungary by default – you must contact one on your own and see if they are willing to accept you in their practice. However, if you do not have any recommendations, you can start with the GP in charge of the area where you live (considering either your permanent or temporary address), because they must accept you in their practice, or they may be able to refer you who an English-speaking colleague.
To find out who your area doctor is, the easiest way is to ask your neighbors. In most apartment buildings, there is a bulletin board near the entrance; the name, address, and visiting hours of the area GP should be advertised there. You can also find out about your area doctor on the website of your local municipality (more on this below).
If you do not remember who your GP is, you can check it on the website of the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund. Find the instructions here.
Types of general practices: what kind of doctor do you need?
Although the GP in Hungary is often referred to as a family doctor, it is important to note that adults and children are treated separately. While there is always an area doctor for adults, for the same area the pediatrician (children’s doctor) will be a different person, and even their office might be at a different location. Moreover, to support the health of newborns and infants (and their mothers), there is a special network of nurses (“védőnői szolgálat”). Before setting out to find a GP, you should determine which of these you need.
Find your GP online
Doctors’ offices are usually listed online, together with visiting hours. If you want to find your area GP in Hungary, after asking the neighbors and checking if there is a bulletin board in your house you can go to the website of your local municipality. Since these websites are all developed and maintained by the individual municipalities, they all look different; their intuitiveness and user-friendliness vary, while they are often available only in Hungarian.
Regarding general practices, each municipality is artificially divided into “areas”. To find your local GP, you should determine which area you belong to within your district. The area will depend on your exact address (street name and number as well), and areas are numbered. Once you know the area number, you can look up the GP in charge of that area.
Search your municipality website to find your area GP in Hungary
Navigating the websites of the municipalities and the local clinics is not exactly easy, especially as they are in Hungarian. To make this more convenient, we have compiled a list for each district in Budapest (and added a few handy tips for other towns) so you can find the area you belong to and the visiting hours of your GP without too much effort.
Since the websites are mostly in Hungarian, here is a list of useful terms:
- körzeti (felnőtt) háziorvos = area doctor (for adults)
- körzeti gyermek háziorvos = area doctor for children
- védőnői szolgálat = care for newborns and infants (and their mothers)
- háziorvosi ügyelet = area doctor out of visiting hours, for cases that are urgent enough to need immediate treatment, but not serious enough to call the ambulance or go to the Emergency Room
- lakhely szerinti keresés / cím szerinti keresés = search based on your address
When looking up visiting hours, watch out for A/B weeks (odd or even number weeks). Sometimes visiting hours may alternate week by week, e.g. your GP may be available in the morning or in the afternoon on alternating Fridays (in the morning in “A” or “odd number” weeks, and in the afternoon in “B” or “even number” weeks).
Because of the pandemic, make sure to call or email your GP before you visit them.
General practices in Budapest
- District 1 (Budavár) – doctors – areas
- District 2 – doctors – areas: listed on the same page
- District 3 (Óbuda) – doctors – areas
- District 4 (Újpest) – doctors – areas
- District 5 (Belváros–Lipótváros) – doctors – areas
- District 6 (Terézváros) – doctors – areas
- District 7 (Erzsébetváros) – doctors – areas
- District 8 (Józsefváros) – doctors – areas
- District 9 (Ferencváros) – doctors – areas: to see your area GP, type your full address
- District 10 (Kőbánya) – doctors – areas
- District 11 (Újbuda) – central clinic – in the menu, choose Rendelések > Háziorvosok; in the pop-up, select Felnőtt háziorvos for the adult GP, then chose “orvos szerinti keresés” to choose a doctor, or “lakhely szerinti keresés” to find your area doctor
- District 12 (Hegyvidék) – doctors – areas
- District 13 – doctors – areas on an interactive map
- District 14 (Zugló) – doctors – click “cím szerint” and add your address to find your area
- District 15 (Rákospalota, Pestújhely, Újpalota) – doctors – areas
- District 16 (Cinkota, Mátyásföld, Rákosszentmihály, Sashalom) – doctors – areas
- District 17 (Rákosmente) – doctors – areas
- District 18 (Pestszentlőrinc–Pestszentimre) – doctors – areas
- District 19 (Kispest) – doctors – areas
- District 20 (Pesterzsébet) – doctors – areas
- District 21 (Csepel) – doctors – areas
- District 22 (Budafok–Tétény) – doctors – areas
- District 23 (Soroksár) – doctors – to see the areas, choose the “Utcajegyzék” in the top menu. Then you can select your doctor under Háziorvosok > Felnőtt háziorvosok
General practices in other towns
If you do not live in Budapest, you can still find your area GP on the website of the municipality your address belongs to. From the municipality page, you might be redirected to the local clinic and the list of doctors. In most cases, the main page displays the contact data of the doctors, while there is an “areas” section on / accessible from the same page. Look for an obvious field, button, or hyperlink.
- Sometimes you will get to a PDF file with a list of addresses where you should find your own address and see your area number (and possibly the GP assigned to it).
- Sometimes you will find a search function where you are supposed to type in your address to see your area (and the contact data of the area GP).
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