Prof. Gertruda Uścińska: Carer's allowance is a guarantee of social security

We often talk about the fact that effective treatment reduces costs due to sickness absences. We also know that if a child in a family gets sick, the whole family gets sick. What systemic costs does this create?

I think we should look at it from the former side, which is that in case of illness of a child up to the age of 14, we already have for years this right to a care allowance for 60 days a year. This is also a guarantee of social security, because the allowance is paid from the sickness fund, and it will allow us not only to provide care for a certain period of time, but also to arrange it if it is a problem that will last longer. We have not seen for many years a trend related to abuse, for example, or some gigantic increase in costs. In no way can such a thing be said here. On the other hand, I have to say that we played this key role when it came to the pandemic period, when we actually had to organize on a very large scale, to take over the payment of those extra care benefits that were associated with the pandemic period, when the institutional arrangements were also not functioning. This really required a huge amount of work at Social Security.

We have a great platform for electronic exemptions. It's a form that organizes this area. There we can see not only who is sick with what, but also the dynamics in the qualitative and quantitative structure. A lot of fantastic information can be drawn from these databases. The system of jurisprudence for children and adolescents can also be sorted out, also think about the kind of platform we created for economically active people, which would also allow for better analysis and conclusions for the future.

Thank you for the interview.