A hospital's loss on a single birth can reach 10-12 thousand zlotys, and this is by no means about wards where births are received two or three times a week. Therefore, hospitals with even a few hundred births a year would gladly close their wards, one might even wonder - why they don't do it.
Who will maintain the delivery rooms? Directors sound the alarm: current valuations are unsustainable
Published April 16, 2026 06:12
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On Tuesday, the Parliamentary Group on Perinatal Care met in the Sejm, and the discussion - with a strong representation of hospitals - was very heated. Hospital directors basically unanimously stressed that at the current level of valuations, maintaining delivery wards is driving their entities into serious losses, running into millions of zlotys. At the same time, hospitals are not closing wards, especially in those provinces where many delivery rooms have already disappeared. This, they say, is a matter of responsibility for the safety of the population, because no one is in control of the "disappearance" process - neither the regional authorities nor the Ministry of Health. They are strongly critical of the decisions the ministry is making on this issue. Decisions, or decision, as they are referring to so-called "birth rooms.
Hospitals don't want them, as evidenced by the fact that one application has been submitted so far, meanwhile five more obstetrics-gynecology wards have been closed since the beginning of the year. One of the reasons, the directors said, is the "horrendously low" pricing: the monthly lump sum is just over 260 thousand zlotys, while the maintenance of the ambulance that must be at the disposal of the room is 150 thousand zlotys, and the obstetric staffing is 100 thousand zlotys (five midwives cost the hospital 100 thousand zlotys). There is no space to cover other necessary costs. Hospitals are also held back by the fear of the consequences of possible complications if the birth had to take place in a birthing room - despite the MZ's declaration that there will be no births in birthing rooms, because de facto they are supposed to be consultation points for women in whom labor begins or is in progress, but there is time to transport them to other hospitals, already with a maternity ward.
Prof. Ewa Wender-Ożegowska, MD, national consultant in gynecology and obstetrics, disagreed with the assessment that the pricing for birth rooms is too low and also with the claim that it is dangerous to conduct deliveries in them. They are to be used only in emergency situations. She recalled that last year the AOTMiT prepared new valuations for gynecological procedures, and this year from July there is a chance for an increase in obstetrics valuations.
The Health Ministry has assured that it is working on another concept - birthing homes, where midwives, prepared for this purpose, could receive physiological deliveries after physiological pregnancies. But will this improve women's sense of security?
During the discussion, the conviction resounded strongly that it is necessary to strengthen those departments and hospitals that are able - infrastructurally and in terms of staff - to continue receiving several hundred (and more) births per year and at the same time ensure a high standard of care (including guaranteed access to anesthesia) and safety for mother and child, while preparing a viable solution to the problem of equal (or comparable) access to safe delivery for all parturients.
