OBJECTIVES: Many international literatures have evaluated the quality of health care of patients hospitalized on different days of the week, during non-office hours and at night. The time of admission can usually not be chosen by the patient in two wards: in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the maternity ward. The aim was to examine whether the time of admission had any influence on the mortality in Hungary. METHODS: The figures of the ICUs and the maternity wards were evaluated between 2000 and 2008. Data were derived from the financial database of the National Health Insurance Fund Administration, the only health care financing agency in Hungary. RESULTS: Mortality of 15.3% of patients admitted to the ICU on Monday decreases to 12.5% of those admitted on Friday, then increases to 20.3% on Saturday and 25.3% on Sunday. On the other hand neonatal mortality above 2500gms is between 0.09% and 0.11% during the week. It is 0.1% on Saturday and 0.11% on Sunday. Examining the admissions by the hours of the day, in the ICU the potential to survive is the highest with patients being admitted at the beginning of office-hours, at 8 o’clock, with 6.6%. After that mortality is continuously increasing until reaching its peak of 22.6% at 2 o’clock in the morning. Results can be explained by saying, employees have the least working capacity or patients being admitted to the ICU at night hours are in severe condition having less chance to survive. CONCLUSIONS: The health care on the weekend and night differs in quality from the rest of the week and the day. Whether it is due to schooling or the number of staff needs further evaluation. These data confirm that quality of health care of different wards can also be characterized by the mortality depending on the time of admission.