A record number of doctors have applied to leave Poland during the first quarter of this year, according to the country’s Supreme Medical Council (NRL). Almost 200 have requested certificates required to obtain employment abroad.
“Never in history has there been such a number in one quarter,” said Andrzej Matyja, president of the NRL, quoted by PAP. He warned that there “would be a catastrophe” unless the government took steps to reform the ailing sector, whose long-term difficulties have been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Poland currently spends less on health as a proportion of GDP than all but four other EU countries. It also has fewer doctors in proportion to its population than any other member state, according to the OECD. As coronavirus infections spiked last year and hospitals struggled to cope, Poland recorded the EU’s highest excess death rate.
Matyja urged the government to train more medics and improve their working conditions. Doctors in Poland have in recent years protested in demand of higher pay, better working conditions and more state spending on healthcare.
The head of the NRL also pointed to other issues affecting the healthcare system, including “assistants” and “caregivers” being hired to perform the duties of qualified doctors and nurses.
Poland currently faces a shortfall of between 20,000 and 50,000 doctors, reports PAP. During the pandemic, 400 medical workers in Poland have died with coronavirus, of whom 150 were doctors and dentists.
Poland has the lowest number of doctors and nurses in proportion to population, as well as the lowest healthcare spending as a share of GDP, notes new report by @TheKingsFund (https://t.co/RvwKbxFBc6) pic.twitter.com/YhgE55WloS
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) May 6, 2018
A study conducted last year by Cracow University of Economics (UEK) found that 9% of doctors said they wanted to emigrate after the pandemic and 6% to retire. One in ten nurses also want to either move abroad (3.8%) or retire (6.3%).
Last year, the government began efforts to attract Ukrainian and Belarusian doctors to plug the gaps in its system, including by simplifying the procedure to obtain medical licences in Poland.
However, only 39 applications to practise in Poland have come in from foreign doctors – mainly from Ukraine and Belarus – in the past months, according to the NRL. The council has accepted four, rejected one due to a lack of necessary documents, and is in the process of reviewing the others, reports PAP.
In 2018, the government pledged to boost healthcare spending to 6% of GDP by 2024. Its imminent New Deal economic plan – whose publication has been delayed by the onset of the third wave of the pandemic – is expected to increase that targeted figure to 7%.
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.
