As the Polish government seeks to boost the capacity of the healthcare system amid a surge in coronavirus cases, it has tasked six state-controlled companies with building temporary hospitals that will have a joint capacity of 3,000 additional beds.
The developments come amid continued reports that existing hospitals are struggling to cope. Some regions – including around the capital, Warsaw – are running out of ventilators designated for COVID-19 patients, despite a spare capacity of 22% across the country as a whole.
The head of the prime minister’s chancellery, Michał Dworczyk, said on Friday that among the state-owned firms involved will be Orlen – Poland’s biggest company by sales – and fellow oil refiner Lotos, as well as metals giant KGHM and the country’s largest bank, PKO BP.
“There are still free beds in the health service, but they are unevenly distributed. In cities it is already a serious problem” admitted Dworczyk, explaining the government’s decision to build the emergency hospitals, including one at the National Stadium in Warsaw.
Lotos Group has confirmed that it is working with the government to build a facility at an as-yet-undecided location in northern Poland. The company said on Sunday that the hospital will have a capacity of 400 beds for patients with COVID-19.
Grupa Azoty, a large chemicals producer, has also announced that it will create a 150-bed facility at the Hala Cravocia sports centre in Kraków. Planning started yesterday, but the company has not yet announced when it will open the hospital.
Lotos, which is in the process of merging with its larger rival Orlen, noted that it has already spent 8 million zloty (€1.75 million) on fighting the coronavirus. Azoty has contributed 3.2 million zloty, according to its acting head, Mariusz Grab, reports money.pl
State-controlled companies were earlier this year enlisted by the government to help combat the pandemic. In March, Orlen was tasked with producing millions of litres of disinfectant.
In April, seven million masks arrived as part of a shipment of 80 tonnes of equipment from China organised by KGHM and Lotos (though the equipment later failed safety tests).
The developments come as Poland faces record numbers of coronaviruses infections and deaths. The daily figure for new cases last week passed 20,000 for the first time, and today’s was over 19,000. Poland currently has one of the EU’s highest COVID-19 death rates.
According to the health ministry’s data, 1,550 of the country’s 1,979 Covid-designated ventilators are currently occupied, along with 18,160 out of 25,902 beds. A problem has, however, been the mismatch between localised demand and distribution of capacity.
On Monday morning Gazeta Wyborcza reported on a conversation between paramedics which indicated that there were no available ventilators left in Warsaw. According to official data from Saturday, 158 of 160 ventilators in the province where Warsaw is located were occupied.
Poland currently has the fourth highest COVID-19 death rate in the EU pic.twitter.com/m4gb2cVypw
— Daniel Tilles (@danieltilles1) November 2, 2020
On Sunday, it emerged that all 55 ventilators designated for COVID-19 patients in another province, Podlasie, were already in use. The province’s governor said today that there are spare ventilators available, but the problem is preparing them for use and finding qualified staff.
Given that a lack of staff, rather than equipment, is widely cited by doctors and experts as the main problem, some have argued that creating new emergency hospitals will not resolve – and could even exacerbate – the situation.
Warsaw’s opposition mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, claims that attempts by the new National Stadium hospital to poach staff from other facilities in the capital with offers of higher pay are disrupting the existing health system.
However, according to a new poll by Social Changes, 68% of Poles are in favour of the construction of temporary hospitals to help tackle the pandemic. Among supporters of the ruling United Right coalition, that figure rises to 91%, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
When announcing the new hospital at the National Stadium, the government had expressed hope that it could open by 25 October. Last week, it said that the facility would admit its first patients on 30 October.
However, by yesterday the hospital still had not taken in any patients, according to Gazeta Wyborcza, with preparatory work and staff training reportedly still underway.
Main image credit: Krystian Maj/KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
