On the need for institutional changes in health care

Abstract

The state of the Polish health care system is not satisfactory. In the elaboration the author discusses the need for introduction of institutional changes in the health care system in Poland in the context of various problems and challenges. The most important of them are the following: the changing demographic situation (ageing population, migration of the Poles abroad), the shortage of medical personnel, the differences in their territorial placement and problem of availability of medical services and the occurrence of queues to specialists. Also the issue of the dominating conflict of interest in health care was taken and the difficulties in reaching an agreement concerning the nature of introduced changes by various groups of stakeholders. A review was made of the ways of financing the health system in Poland from the perspective of history – beginning from the end of the World War II to the creating of the National Health Fund in 2003. Also attention was paid to the problem of the lack of coherence of the laws regulating the Polish system of health care and the occurrence of the phenomenon of softened responsibility. Next the author analysed the planned changes within the framework of the reform proposed by the minister of health Mr. Konstanty Radziwiłł. Their main assumption is the change of the model of financing of the health care system and liquidation of the National Health Fund.