We've warned that introducing regulations that in fact liquidate night and holiday health care and directing patients to hospital emergency wards could lead to a tragedy. And tragedies happen, said former health minister from Civic Platform, Bartosz Arłukowicz. The current minister of health, Łukasz Szumowski informed about "new solutions" by his ministry which assume that patients at emergency wards would be monitored every hour by the personnel.
Reporters from TVN24's "Czarno na Białym" have examined the sitution in hospital emergency wards (SORs). They've seen 24-hours shift from the inside in three Polish cities. Doctors often complain that the wards are attended by people who don't require immediate assistance. As a result, the wards are overcrowded.
Arłukowicz: people die at emergency wards
Newly elected MEP Bartosz Arłukowicz (Civic Platform), a former health minister said that "the situation at emergency wards is an absolute responsibility of former minister (Konstanty) Radziwiłł, minister (Łukasz) Szumowski and PiS government".
"We've warned that introducing regulations that in fact liquidate night and holiday health care and directing them to hospital emergency wards could lead to a tragedy. And tragedies happen because people die at emergency wards," Arłukowicz said.
He explained that "if a mother with a feverish child comes to the same ward that a person with a broken leg, car accident victim and a person with a stroke, then it must end in a tragedy". "And that's what we see today. Emergency wards became absolutely inefficient and doctors don't know how to deal with it".
"Armageddon"
The spokesperson for the Polish People's Party Jakub Stefaniak also pointed out that "stripping family doctors of authorisation and directing patients to SORs caused an armageddon there". "People with strokes wait for dozens of hours in line with feverish children. Mr Radziwiłł has nothing else to do except putting on a brave face," he added.
Minister: SOR patients to be monitored every hour
Health minister Łukasz Szumowski told journalists that his ministry adopted "new solutions" that will become effective from July and which assume that each patient at emergency wards will be monitored every hour by the personnel.
Asked if there's enough employees to carry it out, he replied: "I think so. There are seventy something big SORs that take care of 80 percent of Polish patients. Therefore, there's definitely enough people to check the condition of patients initially qualified as lighly sick or injured.
Karczewski: difficult situation for many years
The Marshal of the Senate Stanisław Karczewski (PiS) was asked about the situation in Polish emergency wards. "This difficult situation in SORs didn't emerge a month ago or two years ago or three, but many years ago," he said.
"I want to thanks all doctors, nurses, all employees of SORs who work so hard and save dozens, thousands of human lives," said the marshal of the Senate.
He underscored that he is aware that work at SORs is "hard and responsible" because he had worked in such ward himself. "This difficult situation is well known to me and others. If some people think that it was any different in the past than I'm sorry to inform - that's how it was. This is the bottleneck of our health care. We've tried to solve it and we will be trying to," he added.
"Minister Radziwiłł has put forward a very good solution, namely to introduce night and holiday health care centres operating next to emergency wards. So that patients in severe condition could be directed to SORs and those in less pain to family doctors," the marshal explained. "Not everywhere it works all that well, but in many, I'd say in most, it functions very well and there are, of course, places that require improvement," he said.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: tvn24