Alarming reports have been coming from the medical community for a long time now. The Nationwide Trade Union of Nurses and Midwives has alerted that the age structure distribution in the nurse and midwife professions points to the lack of the generation replacement. More than 60 thousand persons working in these jobs, although they have the right to retire, are still professionally active nurses and midwives. This is over 27% of all the employed. If all nurses and midwives eligible to retire resigned, 273 hospitals would be left without personnel. Forecasts show that in 2030 as many as 482 hospitals will have no employees.
The Nationwide Trade Union of Nurses and Midwives raised a lot of doubts to NIK concerning the spending of public funds on the Covid-19 pandemic prevention. The doubts concerned, among other things, insurance conditions for healthcare workers in Covid-19 isolation hospitals, use of personal protective equipment without certificates or compliance in medical facilities as well as job recommendations to healthcare workers at the time when they were subject to quarantine.
The community of nurses and midwives have also raised objections against the project of the minimum salary for healthcare workers postulated by the government. In May 2021, a government project was submitted to the Sejm. It assumed that from 2 July 2021, their basic salary cannot be lower than the average salary in the national economy in 2020 multiplied by the coefficient defined in the law – variable, depending on education and experience. The Senate proposed some amendments to the project, assuming an increase in coefficients which are to determine the minimum salary level. The Sejm, though, rejected the proposals made by the Senate, although they were previously supported by the Public Finance Committee and the Health Committee.
In response to the information presented by the Nationwide Trade Union of Nurses and Midwives, NIK President Marian Banaś resolved to appoint a special Risk Analysis Team. Its tasks will include planning, preparation and then conduct of a system audit of threats – in a broad sense - to the safety of the healthcare system in Poland, with particular focus on issues presented by nurses and midwives. NIK President communicated that this area would also be treated as a priority in the State Condition Report, which is being prepared now.
