Pay Rise Act: How Much Can You Do Wrong?

Senator Beata Małecka-Libera (KO), chairman of the committee, emphasized that already at the beginning of July she received numerous signals from hospital directors and presidents, who alarmed that they lacked money for the implementation of the pay rise act - and the closer the deadline was on August 10 There were more signals when medical entities were to pay higher salaries for the first time. - I am impressed with how much can be done wrong. Two large laws that were to improve the operation of the health care system: the hospital network and the current amendment to the minimum wage law, should improve the health safety of patients and somehow organize the issue of medical staff. It turns out that none of them brought satisfactory results, and the pay rise act even caused chaos - she assessed.

Małecka-Libera emphasized that the assurances of the National Health Fund and the Ministry of Health that the problem concerns a small number of hospitals, 90 percent. of the institutions signed annexes, nothing to do with reality. - Signing the annexes does not prove that there are no problems with the implementation of the act. It is only a proof that the directors stood against the wall - she said.

An example may be the facilities of the Capital City of Warsaw, which is the founding body for ten hospitals. Vice-president Renata Kaznowska informed that the last hospital signed an annex to the agreement with the National Health Fund on September 2. - Directors and CEOs say straightforwardly: we signed annexes under the compulsion of a moment, because either we sign the annex and we have money for the next salary, or we do not sign and we have nothing to pay the salary for - said Kaznowska. The city's estimates show that next year Warsaw hospitals will shorten about PLN 113 million, and 28 million in outpatient health care. The proof that not only small poviat hospitals - which are the most often mentioned - lose by the act is the Bielański Hospital, the largest city hospital in the capital, a third-level facility with over seven hundred beds. Until 2022, as Kaznowska emphasized, the hospital had no losses. Next year, the facility will have a loss of over PLN 30 million, which results from the "forbid" by the National Health Fund of correction factors.

Mariola Łodzińska, vice-president of NRPiP, emphasized problems with recognizing qualifications - it became the norm to include nurses and midwives in groups lower than according to their education. The deputy head of nursing local governments also said that, for example, in Podkarpacie, hospitals reduce nurses' working time or do not extend employment contracts. In her opinion, this is the result of a change in the methodology of transferring money and the withdrawal of separate funding streams. - We are the only group hostage to the act - added the vice-president of Łodzińska.

Władysław Perchaluk, president of the Association of Poviat Hospitals of the Silesian Voivodeship, informed that there are twenty hospitals in Silesia, which, even after raising their valuations, will not have enough money to pay the increases. - This act meant that hospitals in Silesia lack from several dozen to several hundred thousand zlotys a month, not including the costs of inflation - he said. - You awakened the wage demands by putting the stick in the anthill. Poviat directors and hospitals have been accused of a lot, and they are the ones that have proved their worth in the pandemic as front-line facilities, he said, signaling that in October there could be preparations for bankruptcy by hospitals operating in the form of companies.

Jerzy Friediger, director of Szpital Specjalistyczny im. Stefan Żeromski in Krakow, asked the deputy health ministers present at the meeting with a request to officially provide the employees with information that hospitals are obliged to pay remuneration on the basis of required, not possessed education. - We are obliged by states to pay salaries to employees according to the qualifications required. We stick to it, not to mention that we have no money for a different decision.