POZ: the government wants to applaud the sovereign. It is about examining patients over 60 years of age

- There are no studies that confirm the effectiveness of this method of preventing severe COVID-19. Often, coronavirus infection does not develop until the fourth or fifth day. Testing within 48 hours of all patients, also asymptomatic, feeling well after the age of 60 only because they have a positive test result does not make sense - argued Jacek Krajewski, president of the Zielona Góra Agreement at the Wednesday press conference. - During this time, we will not accept many other non-covid patients, including those with chronic diseases. We will make up for this dramatic health debt for years, he said.

In his opinion, with the administrative order "the authority wants to please the sovereign, the regulations are calculated on the applause of voters". - The clinical condition, not a regulation or a law, is to decide when and how we will examine a patient. The Ministry of Health has not consulted doctors on these provisions. We appeal to the minister of health to cancel them or at least extend this unfortunate period of 48 hours for a physical examination of a person aged 60+ who has a positive test result - said the head of the Zielona Góra Agreement.

Tomasz Zieliński, vice president of the organization, assessed that the paralysis scenario of primary health care clinics is realistic. - Black Mondays ahead. On this day, we already have an accumulation of patients from the middle of the previous week. And now, on Mondays, we will have a huge number of people over 60, tested on Thursdays and Fridays - reminded Tomasz Zieliński.

According to Andrzej Zapaśnik, an expert of the Zielona Góra Agreement, there are already more patients in primary care practices. - In our facility last week, on average, there were twenty of them a day, and from yesterday there are forty people. Thanks to the new regulation, this daily number will soon reach one hundred. And then we will not be able to accept the majority of people who come to us - predicts Zapaśnik.

- We should also remember that for each admission of a patient with a positive test result, also asymptomatic, the doctor must change clothes, and after the examination, the office must of course be decontaminated - explained Wojciech Pacholicki, vice president of the Zielona Góra Agreement. This takes time, home visits will cost even more time, and some of them will also be provided to people who do not have COVID-19 symptoms, but, for example, are not able to reach the clinic for other reasons, and the doctor will have to perform the examination. .

The Agreement of Healthcare Employers and the College of Family Physicians in Poland also protested against the ministerial order.

On the other hand, during the session of the Sejm Health Committee, Deputy Minister Waldemar Kraska reassured the deputies that the rule introduced by the regulation would not be a heavy burden for the health care clinic, because - as he calculated - today only about 7.5 thousand infected people are over 60 years old which gives less than one patient per primary health care clinic. According to the deputy health minister, even a double increase in the number of infected will not have such a paralyzing impact on the operation of facilities as the doctors fear.