Poviat hospitals under pressure

The conference was organized by the Association of Polish Poviats, the National Association of Poviat Hospital Employers and the Office of the Capital City of Warsaw, and the discussions were, as emphasized by Andrzej Płonka, the starost of Bielsko and the head of the ZPP, only in terms of content.

Representatives of the ZPP presented, among others the results of the survey, sent at the end of July to poviat hospitals - the verified data concerned 195 facilities, of which 145 declared that they were not able to cover the costs of increases even for employees of basic activities, who are listed in the appendix to the act. For 14 hospitals, the shortage of funds for increases amounts to over PLN 1 million per month, for 33 hospitals - over PLN 500 thousand, for 75 hospitals - from PLN 100 to 500 thousand per month, and for the remaining ones - below PLN 100 thousand.

50 hospitals have declared that they will find funds to pay these basic increases, but in this group of 13 they know that they will have problems with paying higher wages for other employees (the act also obliges employers to increase wages, although it does not specify the minimum amount) and 30 - that it is not possible to give rise to contract workers (meanwhile, many hospitals employ workers, especially medical workers, under civil law contracts).

- The minister claims that since over 90 percent. hospitals signed annexes, this means that most facilities are doing well, and only 10 percent. it is poorly managed. However, please do not confuse the signing of the annex, which often results from the pressure exerted by the directors and the alleged satisfaction of the directors, said Andrzej Płonka. The vast majority of directors chose the signing of the annexes as "the lesser evil", due to the need to provide funds - even if they were to be sufficient only for a short time (we are talking about two or three months).

The Association of Polish Poviats announces that it will seek a meeting with the Prime Minister (despite the invitation to the Tuesday conference, which was attended by several hundred people, no representatives of the Ministry of Health or the National Health Fund appeared) and - probably will apply to the administrative court in relation to with the refusal of the NFZ to disclose data about what funds were guaranteed in the annexes to all hospitals. Bernadeta Skóbel, legal advisor of the Union of Polish Artists and Designers, emphasized that the recommendation of AOTMiT, which was approved by the Ministry of Health, amounted to over PLN 18 billion per year on the part of the Fund's expenditure. - We do not see such an increase in contracts in hospitals - she emphasized. In her opinion, the problems arise from here: a large number of hospitals did not receive the promised scale of contract increases (15-20 percent) through annexes. - 242 chain hospitals declare that the increase did not exceed 15 percent, often it is less than 10 percent. - said the expert.

Skóbel emphasized that it was not a problem that the Fund had liquidated a separate funding stream. - From 2015, funds for increases went in a separate stream. In theory, this was a solution beneficial for hospital directors, because it guaranteed money for pay rises, but in practice it made the picture of how much the Fund pays for benefits obscured - she said.