Simplified procedures for employing medical workers from Ukraine are important insofar as they allow them to find employment in line with their education and at the same time help their compatriots. However, Poland should not count on the fact that all or even most of the medics will stay in our country permanently - results from the discussion that took place during the second day of EEC 2022 in Katowice.

- The health service in Ukraine will require help, some medics will probably return to their homeland - emphasized during the 14th European Economic Congress, in a panel entirely devoted to the health care system in the time of the refugee crisis and war in Ukraine, Deputy Minister Waldemar Kraska.

Kraska said that at the end of April, the Ministry of Health should know more precisely how much money we will need to provide medical care for refugees - PLN 300 million per million per million people are only preliminary estimates of the National Health Fund, to which at the moment service providers report services already provided. However, not only the number of refugees will be important, but also their demographic profile. - The outbreak of the war caused quite a sudden and I think that the unprecedented influx of a large number of refugees in a relatively short period of time, including the largest number of mothers with children, because we already have over 800,000 children - said the deputy head of the Ministry of Health. The money for the treatment of Ukrainian citizens who took refuge and shelter from the war in Poland will come from the state budget, and Poland hopes to refinance, in large part, this aid from EU funds.

As the deputy minister informed, at the moment about 2,000 refugees use hospital assistance, half of which are children. During the Monday discussion panel, experts reminded that now the phase in which help - provided in hospitals or clinics - is of an ad hoc nature, related to the very hardship of war experiences and escaping from it, is about to face another challenge, i.e. providing systematic care to refugees, many of which may have serious health problems.

Tomasz Zieliński, vice-president of the Federation of Zielona Góra Agreement, pointed to the problem with writing out reimbursed prescriptions. - If there is no medical documentation, and many refugees do not have it, it is also impossible to prove the disease and issue a reimbursed prescription. A transition period is needed in this matter, he appealed. Deputy Minister Kraska assured that NFZ inspectors “will not be heartless”. - It is worth meeting at the ministry and dispelling these fears of family doctors - he said.

The refugee crisis is also related to the employment of medical workers from Ukraine in the Polish system. Deputy Minister Kraska calculated that since the introduction of the simplified procedure for obtaining the right to practice for doctors and nurses from outside the European Union (end of 2020), almost 800 doctors from Ukraine have already started work.

The medical self-government does not hide doubts - even objections - to the decision of the Ministry of Health, opening the labor market. But Dr. Jerzy Friediger, director of the Specialist Hospital. Stefan Żeromski in Krakow, a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Medical Council, emphasized in the discussion that not because of the alleged desire to protect corporate interests and fears that doctors from Ukraine would, for example, lead to a reduction in salaries. He recalled that Poland lacks tens of thousands of specialists to achieve the level of accessibility that citizens of Western Europe have. Only family doctors would need 10,000 more. - We really have no reason to defend our jobs. We will be short of staff for a long time, he assured.