New NFZ president claims budget is not in question, but delays are building up

The level of financial support for the health sector will remain at the current level in 2004, announced the new chairman of the National Health Fund (NFZ) Krzysztof Panas. However, he refused to reveal any concrete details, nor the amount of the financial reserves for the coming year. Health Minister Leszek Sikorski had previously demanded the reserve be set at zł. 900 million. Nevertheless, the NFZ did not agree to this and justified its decision by the fact that eight regions would receive less money than in 2003. On Thursday Panas discussed the issue with regional directors of the NFZ. He also obliged them to prepare tenders for providing health services by today. Furthermore, the Fund Council will familiarize themselves with the chairman's proposals today, which should be afterwards accepted by the Finance Minister. But all these steps means that the planned schedule of passing the NFZ budget will be set back by at least two weeks. Due to this, some hospital directors doubt whether the tenders could be carried out and requested that they be allowed to extend present 2003 contracts with appropriate annexes. (Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 7) M.M.