Government entices foreign doctors to Poland with “simplified procedure” and “decent earnings”

Poland’s health minister has invited foreign doctors to come to Poland, where they can now take advantage of a new system making it easier for them to work in the country.

At a press conference, he also handed licences to practise to five doctors from neighbouring Ukraine and Belarus. Those two countries already provide the majority of immigrants to Poland, and during the pandemic the Polish government has sought to attract Ukrainian and Belarusian medics.

“We invite doctors” to come to work in Poland, said health minister Adam Niedzielski, quoted by TVN24. He promised immigrant medics “a simplified procedure as well as earnings that are now decent, especially from the point of view of other countries that do not yet have such a high level of economic development as Poland”.

Following legislation passed in the autumn, the new system makes its easier for doctors or dentists with qualifications from other countries to work in Poland.

Previously, before beginning to practise, it was necessary for the doctors to undergo a diploma recognition process, complete an internship or obtain official recognition of one completed abroad, and take a medical examination. Now they can begin work immediately upon receiving a licence, and then have five years to complete those requirements.

“I am very happy to be able to hand [medical] licences to people who[,]…owing to various administrative and bureaucratic barriers and the costs that needed to be borne, had no opportunity to practise the profession they trained in,” said Niedzielski at yesterday’s press conference.

The minister announced that 46 applications from foreign doctors and dentists had been received. Three of the medics whose licences had been approved and were handed over at yesterday’s press conference were from Belarus, and two from Ukraine.

“The number of doctors in Poland, according to international statistics, is not among the highest in Europe,” Niedzielski admitted, quoted by Interia. “By introducing this regulation we will fill this major deficit of doctors and improve accessibility to doctors from the point of view of the patient.”

According to World Health organisation statistics, Poland has the second lowest number of physicians (2.4) per 1,000 people in the European Union, above only Cyprus.

Doctors in Poland have in recent years protested in demand of higher pay, better working conditions and more state spending on healthcare. Poland currently spends less as a proportion of GDP than most EU countries.

In November, a deputy health minister said that the government was seeking to attract 1,000 new foreign doctors to work in Poland in a bid to bolster the country’s health system, which has been put under further strain by the coronavirus pandemic.

But the methods used by the government to redress the balance have been criticised by some. Medical profession governing bodies appealed to the health minister and president not to sign the new legislation simplifying employment of doctors from outside the EU, citing concerns about unconfirmed qualifications, lower competences, and the lack of an official Polish language requirement, reports the Gazeta Lekarska medical website.

When the bill to simplify procedures for foreign doctors was first proposed in 2018, Bartosz Fiałek of the Polish National Physicians Union told Dziennik Gazeta Prawna that the previous process was “honest and the solutions proposed by the ministry are risky”. He warned that the government was “going for quantity, not quality”.

Nationalist presidential candidate Krzysztof Bosak also last year criticised the government’s policy, arguing that arguing that Polish doctors would be harmed and the level of medical training in Poland diminished.

Main image credit: Adam Guz/KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Ben Koschalka

Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.