Dentists’ in-country distribution in Hungary

Abstract

Concerning the human resource management in the health care, Hungarian analysts focus mainly on cross-national
migration, which was instigated considerably by joining the European Union in 2004. Contrasted to other health care
professionals, dentists emphasized also the importance of in-country migration (mobility) indicating serious dangers of
developing inequalities in the dental service. From the point of view of health system planning, the main problem is to
balance the needs and the number of professionals in regions and areas with extremely different socio-economic conditions.
Under dictatorial governments, this “balancing” (which was experienced also in Hungary) is a forced allocation
of young professionals to the target regions. In political freedom and free market economy, these measures are unthinkable.
The present domestic area distribution, concerning also the supply through vacancies by old age inactivity and
cross-national migration, is ruled by personal decisions of actually graduated and immigrant professionals respectively.
Therefore, it is unavoidable to investigate the interrelation of factors (dentists’ births place, study migration and decisions
for practice allocation) ruling the in-country geographic patterns of dental practices. This evidence-based knowledge
can only explain the present situation and provide guidelines for health policy decision makers.