Let the walls go up

I would really like to commend the ministry for something, because the constant criticism becomes boring, and the writer of these words can become an incorrect curmudgeon. Unfortunately, another bill, this time on the 7-year transformation plan, did not give me a chance to write something good.

Apart from, I hope that the accidental associations with those developed for the so-called communes with five and six-year plans The seven-year transformation plans are, according to the originators, a way to repair the health care system. Bearing in mind that the method and proposed factors that would be taken into account when creating these plans and the method of their approval, and the fact that the basis for the development of plans will be the so-called maps of health needs it becomes clear that these plans will be mainly investment, renovation and purchasing plans, i.e. they will focus on structural issues, i.e. on facilities and their equipment.

Meanwhile, the fact that the health care system in Poland is malfunctioning is not due to structural problems. The main problems of health protection are organizational and functional problems. Of course, the material structure of health care also requires constant improvement, but this is not its main problem and the purchase of, for example, another MRI device will not improve its functioning in any way.
Let me use two examples from the last period of the struggle with the epidemic. Well, from the fact that in the second quarter of last year, Minister Szumowski informed that the available laboratory base enables the performance of about 100,000. tests a day, when at that time - and in flights - only about 30 thousand. tests, and the minister did not know why it did not work. Well, at high cost we built very large temporary hospitals in stadiums and large halls, when even at a time when we are breaking the world records for incidence per million inhabitants, these hospitals were not able to accept as many patients as - by building them - scheduled. In both cases, there was the right structure, and in both cases it just didn't work as it should.

The fundamental disadvantage of this draft law is that the announced plans would be developed on the basis of maps of health needs, while these maps are maps of needs only in name, in fact they are mainly descriptions of existing resources. The problem with maps begins with the fact that the very term "health need" is undefined. It is not known whether it concerns the need to obtain quantifiable health benefits or the improvement of a deteriorated health condition. Is it about the needs related to the disease or does it involve preventive measures for those who are still healthy? So, developing 7-year plans from need maps that are not need maps is building one falsehood based on the other falsehood.

Reading the draft, one gets the impression that transformation plans are meant to be a method of healing the health care system. Meanwhile, they will only deal with a part of the problem, leaving and relegating the need to improve the functioning of the health care system to the side track. Meanwhile, it is precisely dealing with structural problems that is just a side track. Perhaps this is because the Ministry of Health is run by technocrats outside the health care system, and therefore they believe that the health care system will function well with buildings and equipment. Yes, they are needed, but as they sometimes say, buildings do not heal.

And this is what I am giving consideration to the originators of creating 7-year plans. We will spend a lot of money again and everything will be as it was again. Or maybe that's what it's all about…

Source: " Healthcare ”4/2021