New version of the draft act on the modernization of hospitality

- Let's save poviat hospitals that the Ministry of Health wants to liquidate! - exclaimed the leader of PSL, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, during the recent Congress of the Polish Village of the 21st Century. And even if there is a political exaggeration in this statement, indeed for some poviat hospitals - as shown by the analysis of the Association of Polish Poviats - the original draft law would mean huge problems, because they would qualify for the category in which serious restructuring - including the closure of many departments and a change in the profile of activity , for example, towards long-term care - would be the only way.

During the public consultation, over 2.6 thousand comments were submitted to the draft. After analyzing them, the Ministry of Health prepared - as Minister Adam Niedzielski told journalists on Friday - another version of the draft, which takes into account "a large part of the comments". Moreover, this draft will not be sent for work at the government level immediately, but there will be a second round of consultations. May, the minister said, is to be filled with meetings, incl. with organizations associating hospitals and local government representations. The talks will concern the whole, but also very specific solutions. - We are discussing when the first hospital assessment, the mandatory one, should be carried out. We are still discussing this subject with social partners. So far, we assumed that the assessment process for 2022 should be carried out in 2023, but everything will depend on the pace at which the act will be processed and the level of preparation of hospitals - noted the head of the Ministry of Health.

As originally announced, the law was to be adopted earlier this year, but in the National Reform Program, the government informed Brussels that the planned date of entry into force of the "hospital constitution", which is an important part of the changes in health care, included in the KPO and the NRP is the third quarter of this year. However, politics may stand in the way. The act, in whatever form it is presented, must mean - if it is to make sense - for some hospitals the prospect of difficult changes. Poland, on the other hand, is awaiting elections - planned in the fall of 2023, but it is increasingly said that they will be accelerated and will take place either in the spring of 2023, or even in the fall of this year, if the PiS president Jarosław Kaczyński decides to throw Solidarna Polska from the coalition of Solidarity, which is blocking changes in the judiciary and thus - reaching an agreement with the European Commission and unlocking money for the National Reconstruction Program. Hundreds of billions of zlotys are now necessary for Poland so that the problems - high inflation, possible economic slowdown due to, for example, a decline in consumption, which was the key driving force for the economy - do not turn into a serious crisis.