Four years ago, sugar tax was introduced to support healthy consumer choices and motivate producers to produce sugar -free drinks. It was supposed to be an important front of the fight against the scourge of obesity. Over four billion zlotys went to the National Health Fund from this tax. And how much did it go to the obesity program? 1/40 of this sum. The program has just been closed.
Mrs. Patrycja has been fighting obesity for many years. It currently weighs over 150 kilograms. She wanted to take treatment and just found out that she would not get this treatment. – Unfortunately, but I didn't get it. It is a bit sad, because this program gives a lot of people – she confessed.
It is about the KOS-Bar program, whose pilot took place in Poland until Monday. – I was still hoping that the KOS-Bar program would continue to work and I would be able to participate in it. Unfortunately, I got information that this program is no longer working – said Mr. Łukasz, who because of obesity suffers from sleep apnea, has hypertension, and in a moment he may also have diabetes.
ObesityPAP
What about additional money for treatment?
Patients with obesity are not accepted for treatment under the program, although additional money has been affected by their treatment for the NFZ for four years. Only in 2021-2023 of sugar tax Four and a half billion was received from the NFZ from the NFZ. The problem is that the National Health Fund allocated only PLN 100 million from this amount to KOS-Bar.
The report of the Supreme Audit Office shows that a large part of this money was not spent on what it should. “Sugar fee finance, among others, benefits regarding diseases not related to improper nutrition practices,” said the auditors.
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Doctors beat the alarm. – These patients will develop more and more diseases that deteriorate their quality of life and their health. This is one issue, but the other, costing a lot of our budget – emphasized Professor Monika Proczko from the Oncological, Transplant and General Surgery Clinic in Gdańsk.
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The program will go to the basket of guaranteed benefits
Poland is in the European lead when it comes to the problem of obesity. Polish children are fastest in Europe. – Apart from the KOS -Bar program, no other solution in such a systemic way approached the subject of treatment of obesity – indicated Professor Piotr Major from the Clinical Department of General, Oncological, Metabolic and Emergency States of the University Hospital in Krakow.
– The Ministry of Health must decide about the possible continuation of the program. We have not received information that would indicate that these patients are not accepted – said Paweł Florek from the National Health Fund.
– Only from July, treatment in the KOS-Bar program will return as part of the guaranteed benefits basket. Now there is a transitional time – explained Deputy Minister of Health Wojciech Konieczny. – It takes time, and therefore the decision was made. These are aspects that the pilot has its rights and the development of the benefit has its rights – explained the deputy minister.
Harmful excess sugarMateusz Krymski/PAP
Source of the main photo: Adobe Stock