A further meeting of the Council of Patient Organisations took place on Wednesday 23 September. The discussion concerned changes that should be made to primary healthcare. Patient Ombudsman Bartłomiej Chmielowiec invited Professor Agnieszka Mastalerz-Migas - national consultant in family medicine and chair of the team for changes in primary care appointed by the Minister of Health - to take part in the discussion. Representatives of the Zielonogórski Agreement, the NFZ and the Ministry of Health also took part in the discussion. Deputy Minister of Health Piotr Bromber, responsible for social dialogue, was a special guest. More than 60 patient organisations took part in the meeting.
Bartłomiej Chmielowiec stressed that in 132 municipalities in Poland, there is not a single POZ centre, and there are 3.45 thousand patients per centre, with significant differences between areas. - According to our observations, refusal to provide services on the day of registration and to carry out a patronage visit, refusal to carry out a personal visit and to issue a referral for diagnostic tests or to a specialist are the problems most frequently reported by patients, the Patient Ombudsman emphasised. - We would like the POZ to cooperate with the patient, guide them through the system, involve them through health education, health promotion and disease prevention programmes, added Bartłomiej Chmielowiec.
Prof Mastalerz-Migas spoke, among other things, about the need for changes in a pro-patient direction. - The patient should feel 'taken care of', derive real benefits from contact with primary care. Paradoxically, today, in order to be sick, the patient has to have a lot of power, because his or her movement through the system is very difficult, she explained. The national consultant added that the new regulations should change primary care in every respect, above all in the directions of strengthening prevention, coordination of care, or comprehensive care in chronic diseases. - The pilot of the POZ PLUS Programme is now coming to an end. We already know its results and what is worth implementing in the system. We should also talk about increasing the entrusted budget to expand the package of diagnostic tests already at the POZ level, but also to improve access to specialists," added the professor.
Patients' organisations also indicated a number of areas where changes are needed. Education of primary care physicians, the inclusion of social care workers in primary care teams, proactive prevention among children and adolescents, coordinated care for children, or new regulations for patronage visits are just some of the demands made by members of organisations gathered in the Council of Patient Organisations at the Patient Ombudsman.
Deputy Health Minister Piotr Bromber, responsible for social dialogue, also attended the meeting. He assured that changes in primary health care are an important part of the evolution of the health care system and stressed his openness to further discussion.
The next ROP meeting on changes to primary care will take place in December 2021.
Source: gov.pl/web/rpp