What about these changes?

Counties have just joined the chorus of voices "for" changes - and immediate ones at that. The General Assembly of the Union of Polish Counties called on the government "to immediately undertake legislative work on changing the rules for shaping salaries in the health sector." - People in the medical profession should be paid fairly, but this does not mean that the level of their salaries should be shaped in isolation from the economic realities of our country, and this is what is currently happening. There are two reasons for the irrationality," the position reads. The districts point out that the original sin is tying salaries to the national average, inflated by a small group of the best (extremely highly) paid people. - The value of the median salary is 20 percent lower than the average salary, the ZPP reminds, adding that "the average salary in the economy is calculated taking into account not only the basic salary but also other components of the salary, including the additional annual salary of employees in the budgetary sphere." And it is this doubly inflated salary that is the base amount for health care workers, the base amount for calculating the basic salary, to which allowances are added. The effects of this mechanism are felt especially outside the largest cities: the discrepancy between salaries in health care and in other public service sectors means that a staffing crisis is intensifying in the latter, and employees are seeking employment in medical entities.

The second problem identified by the IPP is contracts "for certain medical professions, including doctors in particular." The districts point especially to the lack of upper bounds on salary levels. - Today, it can be said that the situation has long been out of control. Due to the lack of a sufficient number of doctors, medical entities are forced to pay any rate in order to keep doctors with them, they remind, adding to the call for urgent work on legislative changes the demand for "an adequate increase in the funds going to medical entities, on a scale corresponding to the effects of the salary increase from July 1, 2025."

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry still has not disclosed the AOTMiT's recommendation and has not indicated which option will be implemented. One can guess that arrangements are being made with the Ministry of Finance regarding the amount of subsidy the state budget will provide to the NFZ. Because without the subsidy the money for the increases, which Fund representatives have been talking about for many weeks, simply won't be there.

There will be, or at least there are supposed to be - on June 25 - known proposals for changes in the increase law. We have come a long way over the year. From announcements that the government will not take away anything the Law and Justice Party "gave" (Minister Izabela Leszczyna, at a meeting with district hospital directors in Warsaw in the summer of 2024, virtually ruled out changes to the law, limiting its financial impact) to the Prime Minister's declaration that the increase in funds in the health care system is to go "for treatment," not "for salary increases," and in any case the proportions are to be changed.

PS. Who else remembers that in the spring of 2022, the Senate, in opposition to the government, wanted to increase labor coefficients by 0.2 percentage points for all groups, as a title to offset the effects of inflation?