Revitalisations in Polish Health Resorts vs. European Measures

Abstract

Nowadays there are 45 statutory health resorts, which means that the conditions and effectiveness of the treatment they offer is guaranteed by the state. Additionally, several dozen locations have natural medicinal resources, which are used to varying degrees. Many locations which served as health resorts in the interwar period, no longer fulfil this function. After the World War II all health resorts operating within the territory of the country were nationalised, but all of the ones that had been operating before obtained relevant statutes. Due to investments carried out in health resorts in time of socialism, many of such locations were subjected to excessive urbanisation, becoming bigger towns with the population of over ten thousand, in others the functions of leisure and tourism were being simultaneously developed, many of them assumed additional administrative functions, becoming seats of communes and counties. After regaining independence in 1989, long-term discussions were conducted devoted to the form and new legal solutions for health resort treatment. Simultaneously, a long-term discussion was launched on possible forms of privatisation of Polish health resorts. In principle, it consisted of three stages, and consequently heirs of former owners started to regain their properties only at the beginning of the 21st century. Owing to investments made in health resorts by different business entities in the years 1950-1989 and during the first years of privatisation, when single sanatoria or leisure facilities got sold, these returns actually referred to parts of treatment facilities or single buildings. Simultaneously, Polish health resorts started to be sold to different business entities and municipalised. Heirs of former owners, local authorities, as well as new users of health resort facilities conducted all sorts of adaptation, investment, and renovation works. They focused on the improvement of the quality of the facilities, devices, and space connected with health resort treatment, but they were also connected with the increase of the functional and aesthetic attractiveness of the entire town or village. Comparison of the effects of such measures in several health resorts in Poland with examples of similar actions undertaken in different periods in several health resorts in other European countries is the goal of this paper. It seems that representative examples of renovations of Polish health resorts returned to their heirs are Szczawnica and Solec Zdrój. Another group are spas located in the zone of big cities, such as Mateczny, regained by its owners, or Swoszowice in Cracow, which has been sold. This process looked different in case of health resort municipalisation, as in Rabka and Krynica. Among foreign examples, an interesting one is certainly the health resort in Vichy, restored in the 1960s and 1970s, and then again in the 1990s, Aix-en-Provence, and a small spa in the Vosges. Obtained results of these comparisons authorise us to state important sentences in conclusions.