Split in Health Ministry as doctors protest
Eight thousand doctors and nurses descended on Warsaw last Wednesday to protest against low pay. They demanded an immediate 30-percent pay rise and a more than 50-percent increase in total spending on healthcare over the next three years. They threatened to emigrate to Western Europe if they do not receive it. "We won't watch calmly as our colleagues are forced to work abroad. We want to serve Polish patients," Dorota Gardias, head of the national nurses' trade union, told the protesters.
Poland spends only 3.9 percent of GDP on healthcare, according to figures provided by doctor's unions. This is the lowest ratio in the European Union, where on average about nine percent is spent on health. "We demand an immediate pay rise, legal guarantees of decent wages, and an increase of overall spending on healthcare to six percent of GDP," said Konstanty Radziwiłł, who heads an association of Polish doctors.
Doctors say in the two years since Poland joined the EU, about nine percent of all doctors have left Poland to work abroad. Surgeons and anaesthetists are in high demand in Western Europe and, with Polish incomes about half those in the EU and doctors often earning below the national average, the incentive to move abroad is extremely strong.
Despite promising an overhaul in healthcare before last year's election, the government has since avoided making any serious policy decisions.
However, during a press conference on Wednesday, Deputy Health Minister Bolesław Piecha announced that besides a 30-percent pay increase for healthcare workers, a thorough reform of the sector is planned. Piecha's involvement, however, may add fuel to the fire of a conflict in the Health Ministry. Early last week Health Minister Zbigniew Religa handed in his resignation in protest against Piecha's ideas concerning the future of the health sector. The Prime Minister, however, refused to accept his resignation and said that his strategy for restructuring the sector, rather than Piecha's, would be implemented. (Reuters)
