Poles spend almost PLN 10 bln on private health services annually

We pay with our own money one-third of what the government has promised to add in seven years, experts from the Employers' Union of Innovative Pharmaceutical Companies INFARMA assess.
INFARMA experts estimate that due to the limited budget for health care it is difficult to achieve better health results in our country. Polish patients consider the long waiting time for visits to specialists as one of the most important unmet needs in the field of medical care
Poland still allocates significantly fewer resources to its citizens' health than the EU average. In 2017, the government declared that by 2024 it would increase public spending on health care to 6 percent of GDP. However, almost 1.5 percentage points are still missing to achieve this goal. Therefore, Poles are forced to donate money for treatment and visits to doctors from their own funds. What's more, the report 'Health in the EU 2019' shows that in Poland the number of patients whose death could be avoided thanks to preventive measures and medical interventions is over one-third higher than the average in the European Union. Every year, 20,000 Poles die prematurely.
“In addition, for the first time in many years, life expectancy has begun to decline. Poles now live three years shorter than the average lives of other European countries," warns Bogna Cichowska-Duma, general director of the Employers' Union of Innovative Pharmaceutical Companies INFARMA.
Meanwhile, the report prepared for INFARMA entitled "Financing healthcare in the context of socio-economic effects" shows that in terms of expenditure on medicines, Poland ranks last in the EU. We spend just over €130 per capita, while the average for Central and Eastern European countries is €248.

(Onet)