Poland’s prescription shame

6th January 2012

Patients up and down the country have been left without prescription drugs after doctors launched a nationwide campaign in protest over new regulations.

The new rules oblige doctors to write out the financial reimbursement to which patients are entitled to for the drugs prescribed.

In a storm of protest against new regulations, which came into force on January 1, doctors refused to fill in prescriptions in accordance with the new edicts, an act that led to pharmacists refusing to accept to them and the sick going away empty handed.

On other occasions patients have had to pay the full cost of the drugs rather than the subsidised amount they would have paid under normal circumstances.

Doctors have complained that the regulations add to the already abundant amounts of red tape they have to deal with, and that they are now liable for any miscalculation or mistakes they make when calculating the total.  

“We doctors have had enough,” wrote one anguished doctor in an article for Gazeta Wyborcza, who also explained that even with the use of modern technology the requirements eat into their time, leading to longer queues at surgeries.

The furore led the opposition to pile the pressure on Bartosz Arlukowicz, the embattled health minister.

Boleslaw Piecha, a Law and Justice (PiS) MP, said that the chaos surrounding the implementation of the new regulations meant that the minister “had lost all credibility” despite them being prepared by his predecessor Ewa Kopacz.

“We believe the health minister has lost all credibility as he is partly responsible for the mess,” said Mr Piecha. Pushing home its dissatisfaction with the minister’s work, PiS called for a vote of no confidence on Mr Arlukowicz with Mr Piecha insisting the minister “knew what he was getting into”.

Although the no-confidence vote has little chance of success, the clash with the doctors comes as an embarrassment to the government, and further highlights the underlying tensions that permeate relations between Warsaw and the medical establishment.

Both doctors and nurses complain that attempts to reform the national health service lead to more work for less pay.