Cash crisis

May 10 will be the day that Poland's Minister of Health will reveal a plan to shore up the country's cash-strapped healthcare system.

Polish doctors are among the worst paid in the OECD, and medical staff recently took to the streets in protest.

During the strike doctors and nurses demanded major pay increases. Currently their average pay is zł.1,800 a month, only 70 percent of the average wage. Religa announced last week that he found zł.800 million in this year's health-sector budget to raise health workers' pay by 30 percent, but this falls far short of the protesters' demands. Many medical staff are now calling for the partial privatization of the industry.

Poland spends around six percent of its gross domestic product on health, according to 2003 data, among the lowest levels in the OECD club of the world's most developed countries. The government, which estimates the cost of next year's health sector pay rises at zł.3.7 billion, is struggling to balance the promises with plans to cut taxes and maintain an annual budget gap of zł.30 billion.

The health sector is also bogged down by debt. It already owes zł.2 billion to the government, and total debt is around zł.10 billion, despite a government write-off of zł.8.4 billion in 1999. The cabinet has also promised to write off 70 percent of the state debts next year. Hospitals also owe money to utilities and pharmaceutical firms.

"We are increasingly desperate," said Zbigniew Strzelczak, an obstetrician-gynecologist with a state hospital in Częstochowa. "There are shortages in medical equipment, medicine - basic stuff. This government, as all its predecessors, does not want to deal with this problem. It just cannot be like this." (Reuters)