Doctors: Decision makers, think of the patient!

The demonstration was organized by the OZZL and the OZZL Residents' Agreement. The Medical Council did not officially support the protest, but many district chambers organized transport, and some members of the Supreme Medical Council were also present in front of the Ministry.

Grazyna Cebula-Kubat, chairwoman of the All-Poland Doctors Trade Union, starting the protest, spoke of the need for a long-term, well-thought-out health care reform that guarantees comprehensive care for patients. - There is a need for a reform that will guarantee the financial stability of medical entities, and the organization of work in them will attract young medical students to work, she argued.

As Sebastian Goncerz, chairman of the PR OZZL, stressed, young doctors care about working in Poland, so they care about the shape of the system in which they are to work - that's why it was mainly them who came to protest. Indeed, young doctors dominated Miodowa Street, despite the rain, some even came with small children. - We want the Polish patient to be treated by a well-educated doctor who is not burned out. We direct this protest to the decision-makers, politicians of the future term," he said. - Decision makers, think of the patient! - chanted the doctors.

The organizers made sure that the protest was apolitical, and appealed not to use the party banners they had (possibly) brought, and not to distribute flyers (however, there were no takers for pre-election agitation in sight).

"Zero" of the protest demand was the withdrawal of the Health Ministry from the unlawful limits on doctors' prescriptions introduced in late June.

The other three demands of doctors relate to quality. The first - to the quality of education. "The OZZL chairwoman stressed that medicine is not magic. - It's a craft - demanding, fast-moving, and at the same time delicate and responsible in its nature, but a craft, and a craftsman needs to be trained well, not simply put through the education system at a rim because someone wants to have a better ratio of the number of doctors per 10,000 population.

Picketers stressed that they do not agree with the opening of medical faculties in schools and universities without teaching facilities. - Over the course of this year, the number of faculties under the education ministry has doubled, and the health ministry has added a few of its own. We have a rash of universities without infrastructure and teaching staff. Seventeen majors don't have their own prosectorium, twenty don't have a teaching hospital. There are universities holding classes in another province, 250 kilometers away. There are universities where classes are conducted in groups of 40," Goncerz enumerated.

Secondly, doctors are fighting for the quality of working conditions - they don't want "unnecessary paperwork" and, above all, demand the introduction of minimum standards for the employment of doctors, "which will guarantee the provision of specialized staff in a given department or outpatient clinic per number of patients." - Introducing them and abolishing multitasking will result in less workload, less stress, fewer adverse events and, above all, will allow doctors to take a holistic approach to the patient," Cebula-Kubat demanded.

Third, doctors are demanding a jump in public spending on health care - to a minimum of 8 percent of GDP (that's the EU average at the moment).