The year we began with moderate hopes and tentative optimism is coming to an end

Is the Finance Minister's signature really the icing on the cake, i.e. the public payer's financial plan? An accent pleasing to the eye and even the palate, if one is fond of candied fructose, but not necessary? Not really, if only because a plan that has not been approved according to the regulations cannot be changed - and this already raises(s) huge (and difficult to predict) consequences. The Health Minister is well aware of this, so one must hope that he will renounce the pleasure of staying in the process of good talks and bring them to a conclusion sooner rather than later.

We are coming to the end of a year that we began with moderate hopes and tentative optimism, and are ending with growing concerns and even a belief that the next one - in health care for sure - will be much more difficult.

To do it justice, there was also plenty of good news. Certainly, the start of the IVF program and the changes in the area of perinatal care are major successes (although these are just the beginnings of a long process that is already encountering setbacks: while the Health Minister emphasizes that the number of pregnant women who have received prenatal tests has increased by 25 percent, she failed to mention that the National Health Service is in arrears with part of the payments for the procedures performed and the centers must rely on the Health Minister's "word of honor" that all bills will be paid). Something has twitched, in favor, in the sanitary inspection - at least in the conceptual sphere. The GIS has announced a "great census of children and adolescents" in POZ entities (in terms of the implementation of the mandatory vaccination requirement, of course). This is the last, it is to be hoped, chord of paper-based control - there is a chance (or at least there is hope and announcements) that in 2025 the e-card for vaccinations will take off in full. A breakthrough in vaccinations (both for children and adults) is not in sight, but one can expect things to at least move in the right direction. On the plus side, certainly, one can count the changes regarding remote prescribing - there is a chance that the scourge of prescriptions for marijuana and medicines used inappropriately (that is, simply for intoxication), has been stopped. Here, too, further action is needed, but the effectiveness of the first steps can hardly be questioned.

The list of what went wrong is, of course, much longer, but are you sure you need to spoil your mood in the final hours of the year? Perhaps instead it is worth formulating a wish (while avoiding the trap of wishful thinking): May we be able - as a state, its institutions and the people who run them - to make such decisions in the next twelve months that, firstly, minimize the effects of the crisis, which will undoubtedly be an everyday occurrence for the health care system, and secondly, may we not allow the system to continue in this exacerbation for too long. May we expect an improvement, not a worsening of the problems, a year from now.