‘Envelopes are thinner’

Published on 3 April 2013 at 10:06

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Another consequence of the economic crisis is that bribes are getting smaller, reports the daily, noting that the under-the-table payments made to doctors, and which are common in Hungary, are now more modest.
This small-scale corruption, which has become a part of daily life, appears quite natural to most doctors, who view the “envelopes” as "an additional revenue source" that compensates for their low salaries.
Experts estimate illicit payments to Hungarian doctors at between 30bn and 100bn forints per year (€99.7m and €332.3m), and the practice has been all but legalised by the country’s new Labour Code introduced in 2012. However, with the crisis, the sums that are offered to medical professionals have considerably diminished, notes the daily.

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