After the Trilateral Team meeting, still no specifics. What awaits us in January?

Deputy Health Minister Katarzyna Kęcka announced that the ministry will present a draft moving the indexation of minimum wages in health care from July to January, which would mean a deadline of January 1, 2027. The MZ also envisages changing the increase mechanism, i.e. shifting to an index-based valorization for the budget sector. This would mean that instead of double-digit (10-12 percent) year-on-year increases in minimum wages, salaries would rise at a rate of 3-4 percent. Or - as has been the case in recent years - they could remain frozen altogether.

The social side wants to obtain, in advance, written information on specific proposals, because, as its representatives said, it is difficult to accept a situation in which the Health Ministry continues to attribute the proposals it presents to the social side (in recent days, despite assurances given at the November 25 meeting of the Supreme Medical Council that the Health Ministry does not propose changes to doctors' contracts, Deputy Minister Katarzyna Kęcka, who is leading the talks on salaries, told PAP that the proposal is still "on the table" at the tripartite team). And employers and unions want to find out precisely what is and what is not a ministerial proposal.

But it was not salaries, but the current financial situation of the health system and the Ministry of Health's austerity plan revealed by the media that were the main topics of discussion. The unions assessed that the publication a day before the Trilateral Team's meeting was no accident, and was intended to "soften them up" in talks on raises. They are demanding that the government, from both the Health Ministry and the Finance Ministry, present full information on the financial situation, which will include, in addition to a savings plan, a plan to increase the revenue of the National Health Fund. The next meeting of the presidium of the Trilateral Team for Health Care is scheduled for January 7, 2026, and by then both the written proposals for amendments to the Minimum Wages Law and the financial information are to be presented.

In a letter disclosed on Monday, dated October 29, the MZ outlined changes to the financing of health care services, which would save around PLN 10 billion in 2026. They include, among other things, the reinstatement of limits on certain benefits (including cataract surgery or AOS visits - in addition to primary and surgical) and changes to the rules for free drugs for seniors and the pediatric population.

The proposed freezing of raises in 2026 would result in savings of about 6 billion zlotys, while the use of the valorization mechanism would make the raises for medics cost less than 3 billion zlotys rather than several billion zlotys annually.