Increases in the minimum wages in health care only in the second half of 2022 will cost about PLN 7.2 billion, of which PLN 6.6 billion is to come from the National Health Fund. It can be estimated that wages will increase even more, because it is difficult to expect that the increases will not be demanded by employees working on contracts.
Health Rises: Amount, Costs and Effects
Published April 4, 2022 11:20
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On Friday, April 1, the Ministry of Health submitted for consultation and public consultation a draft amendment to the act on minimum wages for health care workers - in accordance with the agreement concluded at the beginning of November 2021 under the RDS. The key element of the project is the new table of occupational groups, developed according to the qualifications required for the position held, and the new values of the coefficients used to convert the value of remuneration.
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According to the Ministry of Health, the lowest salaries of specialists with the first degree of specialization planned from July 2022 will increase from PLN 6,201 to PLN 8,210, and for specialist doctors from PLN 6,769 to PLN 8,210 (MZ equates the coefficient for specialists with one and two, although it raises these are big doubts in the environment itself). All professional groups of medical workers can count on pay rises from a little over a thousand to even two thousand zlotys.
The state budget will spend approximately PLN 600 million on higher salaries for interns and dentists who are in the course of specialization in residential mode and working in emergency medical teams. The remaining costs of the increases are to be covered by the National Health Fund, which in the second half of 2022 will have to transfer - additionally - almost PLN 6.6 billion to medical institutions.
Employers who do not have a contract with the National Health Fund will also have to provide their full-time employees with higher salaries. - The introduction of the same rate of the lowest basic salary for all medical entities, regardless of their legal form and source of financing, will result in an increase in the salaries of employees of these facilities. This will especially apply to the remuneration of the lowest-paid employees - reminds the Ministry of Health in the impact assessment of the regulations. An indirect effect, therefore, will be expected to increase the prices of commercial medical services, which the authors of the draft amendment directly admit.
Public consultations on the project will last until April 18.
