Piotr Pawliszak: We need to take a fresh look at the health care system

The year 2023 is coming to an end - how does the doctors' government assess the year? What was successful, what may not have been entirely successful, where there were favorable changes and where they were lacking?

I think it has been quite a busy year in terms of content. Two key aspects that come to my mind at the moment are the Law on Quality in Health Care and Patient Safety and the whole discussion surrounding it, including the discussion of the no fault system. The second issue is the new medical faculties that have opened and the issues of turmoil at the Polish Accreditation Commission in terms of the opinions it issues. I think this is a good summary as far as this year is concerned, and at the same time a challenge for next year, because I think both of these areas need to be changed.

However, these challenges are probably more?

We need to take a fresh look at the entire health care system, talk about financing, its sources, the Quality Law, which undoubtedly needs to be amended, and the issue of pre- and postgraduate education.

Important are the issues of quality, understood also as the supervision by the local government of the proper practice of the profession, the issue of enforcing educational credits for the doctor, the implementation of continuing professional development. There is also the issue of new medical universities. I think this will be the foundation of the changes, because the characteristics that a profession of public trust has, according to the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court, include a high barrier to access to such a profession. We have the impression that these proportions have been very badly skewed