Nurses’ employment standards: blow or progress?

Ten post jest także dostępny w języku: polski

Since January 2019, new standards for the employment of nurses have been in force. For this profession, the minimum employment rate for conservative wards is 0.6 FTE per bed and 0.7 FTE for treatment wards. What is more, nurses are entitled to an additional 6-day unpaid leave.

For many hospitals in Poland this is a blow. According to various surveys, the shortage of medical staff, including nurses, is a growing problem in the Polish healthcare sector. This applies to both public and non-public healthcare entities. Nurses, due to their low salaries, emigrate and also retrain to other professions. Hospitals, especially poviat hospitals, do not have money for increases.

The solution is to limit the number of beds per unit. In our opinion, in the longer term, such actions may lead to an increase in the effectiveness of the Polish health care system. It is characterized by too much emphasis on expensive inpatient care.

According to the PMR survey conducted at the end of 2018. According to the PMR survey conducted at the end of 2018, the new standards of employment of nurses are the third biggest challenge of 2019 for public hospitals.