Today, the presidential health summit and the decision on PLN 3.6 billion for the National Health Fund

The presidential health summit “To save health” will be held on Friday. President Karol Nawrocki also has time until Friday to make a decision on the amendment, which will enable the transfer of nearly PLN 3.6 billion from the Medical Fund to the National Health Fund.

The presidential health summit and the amendment to the Medical Fund Act are a response to the shortage of money in the National Health Fund.

The head of the Chancellery of the President, Zbigniew Bogucki, told journalists on Thursday that the presidential summit will focus on systemic solutions.

– What needs to be done in health care, what actions should be taken (…) to try to move Polish health care, which is in collapse, to the ICU, at least to a rehabilitation ward – said the head of the Chancellery of the President.

The president's speech is planned during the summit.

Bogucki announced that on Friday the president will announce a decision on the amendment to the Medical Fund Act, which allows for the transfer of nearly PLN 3.6 billion to the National Health Fund.

The Parliament processed the government project to provide the National Health Fund with an amount of nearly PLN 3.6 billion as an urgent matter.. A day earlier, the Sejm received a bill from President Karol Nawrocki, which also provided for the transfer of PLN 3.6 billion from the Medical Fund to the National Health Fund. However, the Parliamentary Health Committee did not include the presidential project in its work together with the government's urgent project.

The projects of the government and President Nawrocki differed in the issue of the annual subsidy from the state budget in the amount of PLN 4 billion to the Medical Fund. The government project assumed that in 2025 the Ministry of Health would not have to transfer it.

According to information from “Gazeta Wyborcza”: The Ministry of Health transferred PLN 4 billion from the subsidy to the Medical Fund to the National Health Fund in March to repay surpluses from 2024.

The government project includes solutions identical to the presidential project, which assume the creation of two subfunds within the Medical Fund: safety infrastructure and rare diseases for children.

The president decided to organize the health summit “To save health” on December 5 in November after a meeting with the president of the Supreme Medical Council, Łukasz Jankowski.

In the fall, hospitals signaled that they were postponing planned procedures due to delayed National Health Fund payments. The medical self-government raised alarm that some hospitals referred patients eligible for drug programs, including oncology programs, to other centers. The government decided to add money to the system, among others. from bond issues, from the state budget. According to the Ministry of Health, nearly PLN 3.6 billion from the Medical Fund will allow meeting the needs of the National Health Fund in 2025.

On Thursday, the “Safe Patient” medical summit was held, organized by the Minister of Health, Jolanta Sobierańska-Grenda. It was attended by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Minister of Finance Andrzej Domański. The Prime Minister argued that the National Health Fund was not bankrupt. However, he noted that money on health should be spent optimally. Dorota Korycińska, a representative of patient organizations and chairwoman of the Management Board of the Polish Oncological Federation, asked the government to prepare a strategy for overcoming the financial crisis in health care.

The Ministry of Health estimated the deficit of the National Health Fund next year at approximately PLN 23 billion.

The state budget plan for 2026 assumes that PLN 247.8 billion will be allocated to health care. (PAP)

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