Szabolcs Szigeti

As a child Szabolcs Szigeti was an avid fiction reader and identified with the need for someone to be the hero and help the needy. He grew up in Hungary but looking back on his choices he comments that he was also always curious about other nations and cultures, and adds that his own career was closely linked to the human aspects of his country’s social and economic journey as it industrialized. After a conversation with a friend, Szabolcs decided initially to study economics and later social sciences. Although there was a health infrastructure in Hungary, it wasn’t tailored to the newly industrialized population’s needs. Consequently, Szabolcs chose public health and health policies as a way to realize his aspirations to contribute to the social and developmental challenges facing his country. He started working for the government in a unit dealing with strategic planning for health policies. He recalls that the first policy debate he participated in was on a plan to privatize the social health insurance system. Thankfully, the unit managed to argue successfully against the privatization plan in favour of a social health insurance system. Since then, Szabolcs lives and breathes health systems and their financing, completing a PhD in health system governance while continuing to find ways to build a culture for sustainable improvements and policies that have survived successive governments.

He started in the WHO Hungarian country office as a Health System Policy Officer in his specialist area of health system financing and governance after gaining experience at a regional level in the same area, specifically for the tuberculosis programme. He would travel throughout central Asia and the Caucasus reviewing, assessing and training tuberculosis managers on the health financing and governance component of tuberculosis programmes, and working closely with many of WHO’s specialists. Szabolcs is enthusiastic and explains that “the current situation in the midst of the pandemic is an opportunity to diversify care to be more patient focused, allowing on the one hand patients to benefit from outpatient care and facilities and on the other for hospital administration to be focused on the care impacts and on more effective primary care.” As the health systems are reformed to provide a more universal style of health coverage, the mandate for the health workers has also been updated to reflect this.

Szabolcs is optimistic and believes that WHO has a unique opportunity to provide the evidence and influence needed to guide the strategic direction of the Hungarian health system. He’s well placed to believe this, having recently returned to spend almost 2 years working as a policy maker within the Health Ministry with similar goals to develop systems to finance health, build health policy and provide implementation strategies. He sees WHO’s reputation for technical excellence and evidence-based strategic guidance as key to the continuing partnership. For example, WHO’s influence helped drive the government towards introducing taxes on sugary drinks, which could eventually improve health care revenue or divert government funding from curative care to lower cost preventative initiatives.

Today Szabolcs has both a technical and a managerial role in the Hungarian office. His technical duties in health systems and governance have widened to include a full range of health issues and emergencies, and he is also involved in the planning and coordination of policy support from WHO to the government. Health concerns may involve many government departments. For instance, he may advise the Special Envoy for Road Safety to the UN Secretary-General, or a specific Hungarian NGO on transforming the government’s approach to road safety. “I also ensure the most effective communications between WHO and the government ministries on the current COVID-19 pandemic response,” he adds.