Health expenditure is increasing and stoma patients will have to pay extra for essential medical devices.
Up to tens of thousands of stoma patients may soon be forced to pay extra for previously reimbursed stoma products. Such a threat has emerged in the course of work on amending the regulation on the list of commissioned medical devices. The Polish Stoma Association POL-ILKO has issued an appeal to all parliamentarians, pointing out that for a large group of patients this is an unbearable cost.
The Polish Stoma Society POL-ILKO made an appeal to all MPs and senators on Friday 16 September regarding the need to maintain the free supply of stoma products. The draft amendment to the regulation on the list of commissioned medical devices envisages the introduction of the principle of co-payment for reimbursed products for tens of thousands of patients with stomas. According to Andrzej Piwowarski, President of the Main Board of POL-ILKO, and Dorota Kaniewska, Vice President of the Main Board of POL-ILKO, signatories of the appeal to parliamentarians, this is a huge blow to patients who are generally in a difficult financial situation anyway.
"The proposal on the table does not take into account the difficult socio-economic situation of stoma patients. The introduction of a co-payment for many of the tens of thousands of patients will be an unbearable effort. Failure to remove this provision or to coordinate this solution with social policy tools may lead to a dramatic worsening of the situation of patients who are in a particularly difficult financial situation." - reads POL-ILKO's appeal.
As the representatives of the Polish Stoma Society point out, the idea of introducing the principle of co-payment is completely incomprehensible in the face of consistent increases in public expenditure on health and the ever-increasing budget of the National Health Fund. The authors of the appeal refer to OECD reports indicating that Poland is among the leading countries in terms of the percentage of people experiencing ruinous private expenditure on health.
With a desire to prevent further widening of health inequalities, the Polish Stoma Society POL-ILKO addressed parliamentarians with demands to:
- the elimination of patient co-payments for ostomy products or the introduction of social policy mechanisms to support the most vulnerable patients;
- Maintain the proposal to increase the limits on ostomy equipment, which have not been revalued for 20 years, to ensure that these products are adequately available to patients;
- reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and introducing a single order document for reimbursable ostomy products.
According to the signatories of the document, taking into account the above postulates may contribute to a significant improvement in the situation of stoma patients. The appeal of the Polish Stoma Association POL-ILKO was sent by e-mail to all MPs and senators of the Republic of Poland.
Letter POL-ILKO - Parliamentarians 16.09.2022