EC Meeting Papers July 2018

8

Health and social care

The Health care and social workers union covers all related grades in hospitals from director to cleaner and also within the state health care inspectorate the social care sector. There is a general shortage of medical staff and nurses in particular. Two thirds of qualified nurses either do not enter or soon leave the profession. Low pay was cited as the main reason for this. Poland has one of the lowest ratios of medical and nursing staff per head of the population in the EU.

There are a proliferation of small elderly, mental health and general social care providers.

Health Care is provided by the state based on social insurance of 7.75% being dedicated to a national health care fund which is woefully inadequate. For some reason the state directly funds paramedics through a separate funding stream.

For twenty years there has been no central or sectoral collective bargaining in health care.

There are some 17,000 social care workers in Poland we were told and the Church through voluntary projects picks up a great deal of the requirements for provision amongst the population. Elderly care is provided for by 70% of the person’s pension and this is inadequate. Remaining costs are borne by families. The current government’s emphasis is on family funded care rather than public services. There are government programmes targeting support for disabled workers into employment, but these are universally considered inadequate. Interestingly one overseas employer, the fast food chain McDonalds, has prioritised the employment of disabled workers. Disability organisations have fought for change and had some successes on some fronts. Hate crime is on the increase within the country and the unions report more race based and nationalist related crime and teachers report increasing disaffection and violence in schools coupled with a disinterest in learning and progressing. One colleague described the country as being mentally ill prepared for the scale of current inequalities in society. With metal working, steel, and engineering union representatives we discussed the situation in industry, factories and mines. It appeared that a pioneering transfer of engagements between the strong steel workers union/s and the engineering metal trades was in the offing and being considered as an example of new unity. Representatives from these sectors believed that the union had ‘lost the instinct of being on the left’ and lacked an ideological basis for their activity and sould return to their founding principles and moral base. Industry

Central Bank

Poland’s central bank has traditionally been very well organised. However, rationalisation of the bank led to a huge loss of personnel from 14,000 in 1989 to 3,600 today.