Patient-centeredness with a lack of human resources: Nurses are a drastic example

The conditions for ensuring accessibility are of course complex: it is a question of the organization and effectiveness of the system, but also of expenditure and - above all - human resources. In these areas, Poland is not doing well, or - it is not doing it at all. A drastic example, as Mariola Łodzińska from the Supreme Council of Nurses and Midwives said, is the nursing staff. - We cannot dream of replacing generations. 30 percent professionally active nurses are over 60 years of age, and there are also those who work after the age of 70. We have about 13,000 young nurses up to 30 years of age. It is about 5.5 percent. all - she enumerated.

Moreover, a few years ago the Ministry of Health was glad that almost all graduates of nursing faculties withdraw the right to practice their profession (previously, it was rather the norm not to collect this document). So what if - as the representative of the nurses and midwives' self-government said - only half of the PWZ people decide to work in the profession.

A solution, beneficial both for the staff and patients, would be, as emphasized during the discussion, to enclose the medical profession with supporting professions - in the case of nurses, this is primarily the profession of a medical care provider. - It functions in some facilities, but we lack it in every facility, in every branch - said Mariola Łozińska. There is a shortage, because the payer "does not see" medical caregivers - the hospital does not receive more funds due to the fact that patients have better care. The National Health Fund looks at the observance of the employment norms of nurses and converts their number into the number of beds.

A bone of contention between nurses and the department is also the competences of the caregivers. According to Mariola Łodzińska, the concept of the Ministry of Health, assuming the extension of the education path and the related increase in the scope of duties for medical caregivers, even discourages candidates from entering this profession.

Łukasz Jankowski, president of the Supreme Medical Council, emphasized the key issue for patient safety - the safety of doctors. Commenting on the assurances of the Ministry of Health that the development of the law on quality in health care and patient safety is proof of building a patient-centered system, he said that the medical community is even afraid of the proposed solutions, because they may close the way to the introduction of the no fault system, in which doctors are removed from criminal liability for unintentional mistakes. According to the head of the medical council, without taking pressure off the doctors, we will not create a system in which the patient will have, if not certainty, at least a justified sense of security. - A doctor under pressure operates worse. We know this from American research, for example. If there is pressure, the doctor heals worse - he said.