Family doctors: punishment will not improve quality in health care

- PPOZ informed the health department at the very beginning of the legislative process of the Law on Quality in Health Care and Patient Safety that these measures were premature, and that even the best law and the implementing regulations issued on its basis would be dead until the structure of the health care system was cleaned up beforehand and the shortage of medical personnel was filled. Two years have passed since then, and the structure of the health care system remains inadequate to meet the health needs of patients. Staff shortages have worsened even further, so there is no reason to believe that the entry into force of the proposed legislation will change the quality of patient care," Bozena Janicka noted in a letter to the Health Minister.

According to PPOZ physicians - another cardinal mistake (in addition to the premature implementation of quality regulations into a bad health care system) is the introduction of penalties for not achieving the appropriate values of quality indicators.

- Many medical entities will not achieve these indicators for objective reasons, and not because they do not want to. Therefore, we call for abandoning the intention to punish for not achieving the relevant indicators. Instead, we advocate rewarding those who, in the current extremely difficult conditions, are able to achieve such indicators," Bozena Janicka added.

In view of the risk of worsening of the situation in primary health care (which may result from a reduction in funding for services), PPOZ physicians have a negative opinion of the planned provisions of the quality regulation. - This is not the kind of action the Health Ministry expected PPOZ to take after the intention declared in the coalition agreement to strengthen the role of primary care. To date, nothing of the sort has happened and there is no indication that anything has changed," comments Bozena Janicka.

Source: PPOZ