A Tragedy of Olympic Proportions
The death of a world champion and Olympian canoeist reverberates far beyond the realm of sport
Many Hungarians are still coming to grips with the events of last week. Gyorgy Kolonics, a two-time Olympic champion and multi world champion canoeist, died suddenly during practice. He had fainted while rowing and was immediately taken to shore where his coach and team mates desperately tried to resuscitate him. Kolonics died on the scene, however, soon after the ambulance arrived and despite the best efforts of paramedics. Although the precise cause of death is still unclear, what is known is that he died of a massive cardiac arrest.
The death of Kolonics dealt a great blow to Hungary's canoe-kayak team just weeks before the Olympics in Beijing. Many Hungarian athletes no doubt will find it hard to continue with their preparations. The tragedy has been hardest most of all for his partner in the two-man canoe team who still isn't sure if and with whom he will be racing.
As tragic as the death of Kolonics has been, there are still many questions left unanswered as to why the tragedy happened. As a professional athlete who participated in many world championships and took part in two Olympics, it's hard to imagine that someone in such great shape could suddenly and literally drop dead. Admittedly, Kolonics was in his mid-thirties which, in the eyes of most sport professionals, is retirement age. Kolonics himself admitted that he wasn't sure how he would be able to handle the training, but he nonetheless was looking forward to taking part in what he viewed would be his last Olympics as a professional athlete.
When it comes to sport, Hungary has some of the best training facilities and resources in Europe, if not the world. Unfortunately, because of budget constraints some of these facilities and resources are under-utilized. Still, the general preparation for athletes is at a very high level. This includes a strict regime for the medical supervision of all athletes. Kolonics underwent his most recent medical tests in April of this year, and the results showed that he was in perfect health. Thus, the sudden death of Kolonics remains puzzling to many.
Drugs or pressure?
What is perhaps a little peculiar in this part of the world - and for Hungarian athletes in particular -- is that it doesn't appear so unusual that someone in top condition suddenly drops dead. Previously, the same thing happened with Hungarian footballer Miklos Feher who suddenly collapsed and died during a match in 2004. Similarly, in 2006 Hungarian sports fans were shocked and bewildered by the sudden death of Gabor Zavadszky, 31-year-old player for Cypriot squad Apollon Limassol.
Oddly enough, the sudden and untimely death of Kolonics has raised little speculation concerning the possibility of drug use. Naturally, when such suspicions are raised people automatically look to the athlete as the culprit, when in many cases athletes are unaware of the drugs which are being pushed upon them by coaches and others involved in their training. Thus, no one in Hungary has dared to raise the question of drug use as a possible cause of death so as to not besmirch the hallowed image of Kolonics. Instead, many look upon the pressure that he had faced to perform as a contributing factor.
Although the enormous stress to perform is in itself not a criminal act, if such pressure indeed led to the death of Kolonics then it should be exposed and decried in the same way that drug use is - both in the realm of sport and within society in general. This is especially important in countries such as Hungary where people are expected to work themselves to death just to keep alive. Such pressure is considered to be only natural, so much so that state and commercial media are full of advertisements for various medications and dietary supplements that will help to keep you running twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Meanwhile, the underlying problem -- the stress to perform and to keep up with your neighbor via conspicuous consumption -- goes untreated. Eventually, however, this abuse manifests itself in the various diseases and conditions that are commonly viewed as "the ailments western civilization", a price we have to pay for our modern way of life. What is never considered, however, is whether this price really needs to be paid in the first place.
Hungary's health care sector after the reform
Sadly, the death of Kolonics goes far beyond this and reaches to the very core of Hungary's political and economic troubles. In some ways, it can be argued that Kolonics was a victim to the political ambitions of not only Hungarian politicians but Eurocrats in Brussels as well. In particular, the death of Kolonics sheds an ignominious light on the state of Hungary's reforms in the health care sector, reforms brought about by the pressure to conform to the ideals and objectives of the European Union's Lisbon Agenda.
These so-called reforms have left Hungary's health care sector in total disarray. Stories routinely appear of tragedies that could have been easily avoided if it were not for the red tape and the sheer lunacy related to the reforms thus far implemented. In one well-known case, a man who had collapsed on a street in Budapest was taken by ambulance across the city to a psychiatric hospital north of the capital this despite the fact that there was a hospital only a few blocks from where he collapsed. When it was soon discovered that the person didn't have any kind of psychiatric problem but was suffering from gastric bleeding, he was taken back to a hospital in Budapest. A little while later, he was transferred again to another hospital across the city because the hospital he was in didn't have the necessary equipment. Soon after arriving at the other hospital, he died from internal bleeding.
Not all the horror stories about Hungary's dilapidated heath care sector are about death: there are countless stories of pregnant women giving birth in ambulances or other vehicles on the way to the hospital because they can't make it to the hospital in time. This is because a lot of clinics which used to have maternity wards were closed as a result of the government's health care reform, which was proudly advertised as "better service with less".
The problem Hungary faces in this respect isn't only of concern to the living, however. Earlier in May of this year a man who died while riding a bike was left lying on the street for three hours before he was removed. Not surprisingly, locals were outraged that the paramedics who earlier arrived declined to haul away his remains. While regulations say that dead bodies should be removed from public places "with special dispatch", the law doesn't set any specific timeframe for such purposes.
Meanwhile, Hungary's system of ambulance dispatchers is in a chaotic state. Previously, about 100 or so centers handled emergency calls. For the sake of optimization, these centers have been reduced to about a quarter of this number. As a result, the same volume of calls is being handled by fewer centers and thus leading to backlogs, mistakes, and disruptions. In one instance, a car made it to the scene of an accident faster than a medical helicopter, an obvious example of bureaucratic red tape. Nowadays in Hungary, it?s not unusual to wait up to 24 hours for an ambulance in non-emergency cases. Sometimes, however, such a long wait can be problematic as a non-emergency case can gradually turn into an emergency one.
It?s against such a backdrop that the death of Kolonics became a tragedy that many are all too familiar with and that some feel could have been averted. From the first time a call for help was made, it took about 40 minutes for the ambulance to finally arrive. To make matters worse, the ambulance that arrived on the scene wasn?t fully equipped and the paramedics weren?t fully prepared for the task at hand. Later, it was soon revealed that another ambulance with more qualified personnel was closer at hand and could have made it to the scene much sooner. To make matters worse, a medical helicopter was also available which could have reached the area within five to ten minutes.
Sadly, even during such tragedies politics in Hungary seem to go on as usual. Etele Barath, a member of the ruling Socialist party and head of the Hungarian Canoe and Kayak Federation, appeared keen to immediately sweep the issue under the rug as he avoided critically appraising what had happened. Subsequently, it was determined that there was no need for an official enquiry. The authorities accepted the official version of the National Ambulance Service that the ambulance arrived 17 minutes after it had received the call. Yet this call wasn?t the initial call; the first call got lost in the in the chaos of the dispatcher service.
As always, actions to prevent such tragedies from occurring were put into place after the fact. Coaches and other sport staff will be given special training in resuscitation skills so that there will always be someone on hand who knows exactly what to do. Likewise, defibrillators and other such equipment have been made available so that some sort of intervention can take place in the critical first few moments which can keep a person alive and stabilized long enough until help finally arrives.
Ironically, since 2003 the Hungarian National Heart Foundation (HNHF) had already initiated a comparable program called "Every minute counts" in where health providers, mainly general practitioners, are supplied with life-saving defibrillator equipment. Indeed, following the sudden death of Feher in 2004, the HNHF donated a defibrillator to Hungarian football. Unfortunately, the HNHF program has lost momentum during the past year or so thanks in large part to the recent economic slowdown and lack of political will.
Most health experts agree that there is clear need to establish a comprehensive program of life-saving devices and resuscitation training in Hungary. The country has the worst statistics on cardiovascular mortality in the European Union. The death toll is particularly high among males under 65 years of age, with a mortality rate that is more than three times higher than that of neighboring Austria. In essence, one out of every two males in Hungary dies between the age of 40 and 60.
For the moment at least, it seems that the program and objectives of the HNHF and others have been now resuscitated as the focus has turned to ensuring that another Hungarian athlete doesn't suddenly drop dead before the Olympics. Alas, for Kolonics all this is too little too late. The tragedy behind his early demise is that it simply reinforces the view of politicians in Hungary and abroad about those over whom they rule: as the old adage goes, a death is a tragedy; a million just statistics.
The reason why the death of Kolonics has made such an impact is because it has personalized an experienced that many Hungarians - if not most - have gone through at least once in their lives. At some point in time and in one way or another, you are bound to come across the insanity of the country's ramshackle health care system, unless of course you happen to be a leading politician. For them, commonly referred to as "the political class", a special VIP hospital exists conveniently located in the Buda hills of Budapest. Indubitably this hospital is immune from the problems and pressures other hospitals throughout the country face on a daily basis. Perhaps if politicians in Hungary were subjected to the same type of service and medical treatment as everyone else there would be then some sort of progressive change in terms of health care. On the other hand, most Hungarians probably wouldn't mind if a member of the country's political class suddenly drops dead.