- We have fantastic doctors, nurses, geneticists in Poland. They are great people. There are excellent patient organizations and psychologists. You can say it's good, but on the other hand it's not good. We want to get to what's not working, and I hope that what we're going to talk about here we're going to convey to the Minister of Health. Izabela Leszczyna knows how to listen," said MP Katarzyna Piekarska, chairwoman of the Parliamentary Team for Cancer Prevention - RAK STOP during the inaugural meeting.
Cancer prevention is limping along. Outlays are not optimally used
Published Feb. 1, 2024 11:00
fot. Piotr Wójcik
What not only MP Katarzyna Piekarska, but also oncology experts believe is that we are not able to fully realize the potential of Polish oncology is limping prevention.
- A measure that shows how we carry out prevention is mortality. It is still high in our country. We need to educate the public. We need to give people reliable information and gain their trust," said Prof. Mariusz Bidzinski, national consultant in gynecologic oncology, head of the Gynecologic Oncology Clinic at the National Cancer Institute in Warsaw.
As Ewa Prokurat, coordinator of the Cervical Cancer Prevention Program at the CMD in Siedlce, stressed, nearly 300 people die every day in Poland from cancer. We can and do train medical staff, but it is prevention that is crucial in preventing more deaths.
Prevention is the most effective tool in the fight against the disease in oncology, but only 0.1 percent of GDP is allocated to it in Poland. It turns out that even such modest outlays are not fully utilized.
- The first disadvantage of prevention is that we have a healthy recipient. This is the person who doesn't try to get to the doctor because something is wrong with him. That someone needs to be invited, that person needs to be reached out to. The second problem is the passive sender. If someone has a contract to implement, for example, a cervical cancer prevention program, they should be active, get out of the office," Ewa Prokurat stressed.
Participants in the meeting unanimously agreed that a model in which the patient is invited to perform preventive examinations is the most optimal. The patient should also get an action plan from the doctor for checking his or her health. It is also crucial to use the competencies of individual health system employees, such as the person at the registration desk, the nurse, the midwife and finally the doctor.
