The health ministry has developed a methodology to measure, validate and publish the spread of nosocomial infections and published recommendations on the matter, the health minister said at a commemoration marking Semmelweis Day on Tuesday.

Zsolt Hegedűs said the ministry would start publishing figures in early autumn, “informing the public and decision-makers clearly and in a comparable way.”

“What is left unmeasured cannot be improved and silencing will not lead to development, but honest revelation could bring learning, security, and better patient care,” the minister said.

Health care cannot be a system of classified files, and the era of secrecy is over, Health Minister Zsolt Hegedűs said on Facebook on Tuesday. Hegedűs wrote that the previous government had kept a report on the true state of Hungarian hospitals secret for ten years. It has now emerged that even in 2015, the problems were systemic: there was a shortage of doctors, nurses, and equipment, and in many places even basic hygiene conditions were not met.

“But the most serious issue is not just this. It is that they knew. They knew the state of the hospitals. They knew the system did not meet its own minimum requirements. And yet they did not tell the people. This is why the Hungarian health-care system must be placed on new foundations,” the minister said.

He stressed that there must be no more classified reports, cosmetically altered data, or evasive language. Quality must be measured, and hospital infection data, waiting times, and patient safety indicators must be made public.

“We do not want to humiliate doctors and nurses. On the contrary: we finally want to show the conditions under which they have to stand their ground day after day. Patients have a right to know what kind of care they can expect,” Hegedus wrote, adding that Hungary needs a transparent, measurable, and patient-centred health-care system.