- The first call for applications under the EU's FEnIKS program, aimed at primary care providers (PCPs), has been a complete failure, according to doctors of the Porozumienie Zielonogórskie. As they add, POZ doctors, who had been preparing for weeks to submit applications, feel humiliated.

Yesterday (Aug. 20), the National Health Fund announced that due to technical problems with the application for the "Support for Primary Health Care (PHC)" project, which were caused by network traffic congestion (at the critical moment, more than one million attempts to fill out the application), the National Health Fund will postpone the start of the application to Aug. 21 at 2:00 pm.

As we read in a communiqué published by the Porozumienie Zielonogórskie, for many weeks, PCPs had been preparing for this competition. They participated in trainings (including webinars), analyzed the needs of their practices and estimated purchasing costs. However, the application process turned out to be far from EU standards. The servers where the call was supposed to take place were overloaded, preventing many entities from submitting applications. It turned out that only a few who managed to overcome the technical difficulties managed to submit an application. Only a few dozen minutes after the start of the competition, the pool of available funds was exhausted.
Tomasz Zielinski, vice-president of the Porozumienie Zielonogórskie, on the X platform described yesterday's call for FEnIKS as follows: "The impossible according to the National Health Fund has become possible. Hundreds of people are sitting over the site and waiting to see when it will work. Can providers ever be taken seriously?"
Jacek Krajewski, president of the Federation Porozumienie Zielonogórskie, does not hide his bitterness. - Is this how recruitment to the EU program should look like? - he asks, pointing to the lack of transparent rules and regulations for the competition. - The chaos during the call for the FEnIKS project is so great, and there are so many mistakes, that the only reasonable solution is to increase the pool of funds in this call, so that those who failed to send their applications yesterday have a chance in today's call.
- Another problem was the inadequate preparation of the technical infrastructure to handle the competition, which, as was not hard to guess, was very popular, says Wojciech Pacholicki, vice president of the Porozumienie Zielonogórskie. - Earlier interest in the meetings and technical problems with the webinar, which was attended by nearly 1,500 people, showed the scale to be faced in the call for proposals. The National Health Service did not learn any lessons from this.
Nor was the joy felt by those who submitted applications despite the technical problems. It turned out that selected demand points, such as for medical or IT equipment, disappeared from their applications.

Last night, the National Health Service announced a "catch-up" call, which also drew criticism from the Porozumienie Zielonogórskie.
- In what mode is the announcement of the additional call implemented? - Wojciech Pacholicki asks. - The procedure for implementing the call says that "The announcement of the call for applications is made public no earlier than 30 days and no later than 14 calendar days before the start of the call for applications." In addition: "The announcement of the call for Proposals will include, in particular: the amount available for the call." So will an additional call for applications, when the amount has not changed, result in more applications for the same amount? - Pacholicki asks.
Joanna Zabielska, a PZ expert from Podlasie, adds that in her opinion the call process is unequal and unfair.
- Yesterday it was the time of application that counted, and today we read on the NFZ website that it is the score that counts," says lek. Joanna Zabielska. - Can yesterday's applications be withdrawn because of this? And what about the applications that passed with errors? Four members of our association in Podlasie, for example, have half of their equipment deleted. What are they supposed to make up for it now? What else is going to happen? - asks the doctor.

Elaborated. based on: federacja-pz.pl, nfz.gov.pl