Health care system struggles with burden of too many beds and hospitals

Nearly 15% of the time or two months of the year the 170,000 hospital beds available in Poland are vacant. The largest number of vacancies are in Wielkopolska voivodship with 20% of that number and the smallest is Swietokrzyskie with 6%. "If we liquidate 7,000 obstetric beds and 5,000 pediatric ones patients will not notice," said Health Ministry official Krystyna Czarniecka. Local communities always undertake decisions about liquidation of hospital beds after consulting with voivods and labor unions. They have already proposed a list of 45 hospitals, the largest share, seven, to be closed in Zachodniopomorskie. Three-hundred out of total 700 public hospitals are to be restructured. "In places in which public health centers were replaced by private ones, we received positive feedback from patients. If local communities decide to replace public health centers with private ones they will receive money for restructuring," said deputy Health Minister responsible for health sector restructuring Elzbieta Hibner. (Rzeczpospolita, page A1) M.M.