Abstract
Healthcare systems operate properly as long as there are enough skilful health professionals available. This paper compares the population of doctors and nurses in the healthcare system in Poland and in other European countries. We used statistical data gathered by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Statistics Poland, Ministry of Health, as well as materials from the General Medical Council, and the Nursing and Midwifery Council in Poland. We made an attempt to find out why Poland ranks so low in the lists showing the number of practising doctors and nurses per 1,000 population. We identified the main sources of “inflows” (graduates of medical and nursing schools) and “outflows” (retirement, migration, people leaving medical professions) into/ from the pool of health professionals. Our goal was also to specify which areas necessitate systemic changes to increase the number of practising doctors and nurses. We decided that institutional changes are also needed: increasing the number of students admitted to medical schools, better working conditions for medical professionals, incentives to return to Poland, etc. Such changes combined with rising public expenditure may improve the performance of the healthcare system in Poland.
Highlights
One of the major challenges of contemporary healthcare consists in ensuring adequate access to medical services
Healthcare professionals are one of the fundamental constituents of the healthcare systems, which operate correctly only when they have sufficient pools of skilful workforce. The latter dictates the framework within which the array of medical services can be expanded; the right to benefit from top quality healthcare services depends on the availability and quality of medical professionals (WHO, 2016)
Since medical doctors and nurses make the biggest groups of medical professionals, our further considerations will focus on these two groups
Summary
One of the major challenges of contemporary healthcare consists in ensuring adequate access to medical services. Detailed analysis into the changes in human resources in the healthcare sector helps decision-makers adopt adequate measures and introduce corrective actions in the healthcare system as well as at the level of higher education, labour market, remuneration, etc.; these changes may produce expected outcomes by providing a more comprehensive access to services rendered by healthcare professionals. Collecting knowledge about a relatively small group (compared to other European countries) of practising medical doctors and nurses in Poland and detailed examination of the group may facilitate delineating corrective actions within the healthcare system as well as what should be done at the level of higher education, labour market, salaries, etc
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