There is no delivery room in a hospital in Żory. The city has 60,000 inhabitants, but so few children are born there that the ward had to be closed. This is not a problem only for this city. This is the problem of all of Poland.
Żory in Silesia: Picture of Poland in a nutshell. Empty delivery room, empty beds, empty corridors, empty incubators. Not a single mother, not a single child. Dead silence. The city hall had nothing else to do but just close this delivery room in the Żory hospital.
– The need to close the delivery room really results primarily from the financial situation of the hospital, and this financial situation of the hospital is simply the result of how demographics changes – says Adrian Lubszczyk from the City of Żory.
The demographic situation deteriorates dramatically. Five years ago, 850 children were born in this only delivery room, in this city, more than half less last year. The demographic crisis deepens the hospital's financial crisis.
Number of births in ŻoryTvn24
– The financing system of this activity is based on the fact that the National Health Fund pays us for every procedure performed, i.e. for each delivery. If there is no delivery, we do not receive financial resources from the National Health Fund – explains Katarzyna Siemieniec, president of the management board at the Municipal Health Care Center in Żory.
Further delivery rooms will be liquidated, system changes are necessary
There is no delivery in Iłża in the Radom poviat for several months. For the same reason.
– The Poviat Council decided to close the gynecology and obstetrics department on October 31. (…) The decision could only be one: the growing operating costs and dramatic, drastic one can say a decrease in births – says Marcin Genca from the Poviat Eldership in Radom.
Just like in Żory: more than half in just a few years. Recently, there are no more delivery in Proszowice, Nowe Miasto Lubawskie, Lubaczów, Pyskowice, Międzyrzecz, Lubliniec, Nisko and many other cities. More will soon be liquidated. Experts calculate that in total you will have to close every third.
– A comprehensive reform of the health care system is required here. With a network of hospitals. 700,000 children were born in my year, we have the same amount of delivery, but now 250,000 children are born, so we are on the eve of the process of comprehensive reform – believes Bogusław Grabowski, an economist and a former member of the Monetary Policy Council.
Because without a reform, i.e. some coordination, you can not suddenly close such a large number of delivery in the country. The president of the hospital in Poddębice knows this perfectly, who also had to liquidate the labor duty three years ago.
– Men's, top -down decision: there is so much and that's it in the year of birth. No harm to mother and child. There is availability to benefits today. Really good centers, safe delivery centers and this is really a topic to be closed in some way – comments prof. Jan Krakowiak, president of the Poddębicki Health Center.
The Ministry of Health is working on such changes, but we do not know the details so far.