These are no longer black visions, it's a fact - patients from rural areas are losing access to family medicine clinics. The lack of incentives to work in small towns and villages makes even the two-speed POZ a myth today, because in many small towns it is no longer possible to speak of any speed. Will the deteriorating situation of patients from outside large cities finally find a worthy place on the list of priorities of decision makers in health care?
Patients in rural areas are losing access to family medicine specialists
Published Sept. 1, 2022 11:08
Rozmierz - a small town located in the Opolskie Voivodeship. The 81-year-old doctor who took care of her patients to the end dies. As a result, 1,300 patients were left unattended by a family medicine specialist. The clinic in Izbicko, located 10 km away, is not able to help the patients of Rozmierz, just like other facilities in the area. The retired doctor already treats there a greater number of patients than he should, as many as 3,150 people. As Bernard Knosala - a specialist pediatrician from the Med-Izb clinic says, “Despite our sincere intentions, we are not able to help patients. I have been retired for over 20 months, but I do not want to leave my patients, but I am no exception. In our poviat, more than half of the GPs are retired, and there are no young people willing, because there is no incentive for them. I'm afraid to think what will happen to the patients when all retirees want to retire well. ” For older people, it is practically impossible to travel 10 km to the nearest clinic, as well as the access of the doctor to the patient's home, because then others will be deprived of care.
A similar situation takes place in Podlasie. A doctor died in Trzcianne, after his death over 2,000 people were left without the care of a family medicine specialist. And just like in the Opole region, 70 percent. doctors are retirees. They have the same problems - the aging workforce and the lack of people willing to work in small towns and villages. These are just two of many other examples.
The Zielona Góra Agreement Federation has been calling for months about the urgent need to counteract the dramatic and constantly deteriorating situation of patients from rural areas. Two-speed health care, i.e. better access to medical care in large cities and much worse in rural areas, is gaining momentum, leading not to two speeds, but to the complete stoppage of health care services for patients from small towns. The disbursement of funds for increases by the National Health Fund, grossly underestimated by AOTMiT change in the method or level of financing of health care services, which particularly severely hit family medicine facilities, and the project of coordinated care in POZ, which in its current form will only aggravate the problem. “What was the fault of policymakers to rural patients? It is difficult for me to understand that in the face of such a dynamically and drastically deteriorating situation of the sick, decision-makers continue to hit doctors, instead of finally starting to talk to us and jointly finding a way out of the crisis, the victims of which are patients, "wonders Jacek Krajewski, president of the Federation The Zielona Góra Agreement.
There are many examples, and there are no system solutions. Doctors, instead of supporting their patients, have to face the challenges posed by the health care system every day - unpaid funds for pay raises, lack of staff, galloping inflation and the specter of the inability to maintain the facility. How will the death of small clinics affect Poles? And who will be responsible for that?
Source: Zielona Góra Agreement Federation
