Hungarian Health Minister Hegedűs Zsolt Refutes Takács Péter's Ambulance Data

Health Minister Hegedűs Zsolt announced that ambulance response times will now be published using a new methodology that measures the full interval from the moment a 112 call is received until the first appropriate ambulance reaches the scene. He said earlier figures presented by former health state secretary Takács Péter were inaccurate, noting that Takács had claimed more than 95 % of the most urgent (P1) calls were answered within 15 minutes, a figure the new data disproves.

The revised statistics, covering the past five years, show an average response time of 18.9 minutes and a lowest recorded value of 18.39 minutes, with no month reaching the 90th‑percentile under 18 minutes. The minister also highlighted methodological flaws in the previous system, which started timing only after the ambulance was dispatched, omitting the time taken to receive and process the emergency call. Independent health expert Kunetz Zsombor had previously requested detailed data, which was only partially released until the recent comprehensive publication.