Poland’s government has announced a 7 billion zloty (€1.6 billion) funding boost for the country’s healthcare system over the coming years. The additional funds will be used to modernise equipment, raise salaries, and encourage more students to specialise in priority areas.
“The pandemic has strongly emphasised how much new investments are needed in this area,” said the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, speaking to journalists on Tuesday.
Poland last year recorded the European Union’s highest excess death rate, as the healthcare system – which has one of the lowest levels of funding in the EU and the fewest doctors in relation to population – struggled amid the surge in COVID-19 cases.
The new fund is intended to provide hospitals with 1,000 new beds in geriatric wards, replace 400 old ambulances, and bolster funding for emergency medical services. Morawiecki said the government was seeking to modernise Poland’s health system to “at least” the level of “developed Western countries”.
According to Eurostat, in 2017 Poland spent the equivalent of 4.7% of GDP on healthcare, well below the EU-wide figure of 7% and higher than only four other member states. Poland’s spending also lagged behind its neighbours, with the Czech Republic and Slovakia both devoting over 7% of their GDP to healthcare in 2017.
As part of the government’s post-pandemic “Polish Deal” stimulus programme, healthcare spending is meant to increase to 7% of GDP. In 2018, the government had already pledged to boost healthcare spending to 6% of GDP by 2024.
Morawiecki added that the new fund would be used to raise salaries and improve working conditions for medical professionals. “We know that it is not the equipment that heals, but the people,” he said, quoted by Wirtualna Polska. Doctors and nurses have held strikes in recent years over pay and conditions.
The health minister, Adam Niedzielski, said that they would also incentivise students to study certain medical specialisations. He announced that student loans would be cancelled if recipients specialise in a “priority field of study”, such as geriatrics or oncology, and work for a decade in Poland.
Since Poland joined the EU in 2004, over 20,000 doctors have emigrated to western Europe, exacerbating staff shortages. A study in 2020 found that 9% of doctors said they wanted to emigrate after the pandemic and 6% to retire. The government has sought to attract doctors from Ukraine and Belarus to fill the gaps.
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.
