"Black Week" of district hospitals. More than 90 percent of facilities with a loss

Black Week - a protest action by county hospitals, supported by the Union of Polish Counties - is underway. On Wednesday, ZPP and the National Association of Employers of County Hospitals presented a report to the media, along with commentary on the bad - and worsening - situation. According to ZPP President Andrzej Plonka and OZPSP President Waldemar Malinowski, the critical issue at the moment is the attitude of county hospital suppliers. Both those who supply drugs or materials and service providers, including medical professionals employed under contracts. The former are concerned about lengthening payment waiting times and a growing perception that hospitals are no longer reliable partners. - Banks are already reluctant to talk to hospitals," said Chairman Malinowski, stressing that for a long time now the system has been credited not by financial institutions, but by providers.

But the patience of "contract workers" may also be put to the test. The Ministry of Health announces, more or less openly, that this year the increase law will be implemented (the MZ's idea to amend it and thus postpone the increases to January 2027 fell through, in addition, in a rather symbolic dimension), but it will be a minimum variant - that is, only employees employed under a contract of employment will be able to count on an increase in salaries, in addition, those whose salaries do not reach the minimum applicable from July 1. The six-month cost of such an operation is estimated by the MZ and AOTMiT at around PLN 3.5 billion.

If indeed the ministry wants to minimize costs on the payer's side (it is known that at the moment there is not even such an amount in the Fund's budget), hospital directors will be left alone with the salary expectations of the remaining employees. And Waldemar Malinowski reminds us that not only doctors are employed on contracts, but also every fourth nurse and the vast majority of paramedics.

In the opinion of the heads of OZPSP and ZPP, if additional money does not appear in the health care system - the Ministry of Health estimates that at the moment the gap is about PLN 18 billion - further savings will lead to a situation in which some hospitals balancing on the brink of insolvency will simply cease operations, because local governments will not be able to add the amounts missing to "come out on top." This, in turn, as Waldemar Malinowski warned, could, on the one hand, leave the residents of these counties in a situation where basic health needs are not secured, and, on the other hand, have a negative impact, for example, on the situation of medical entities of neighboring counties, if only in terms of the burden on their EDs.