Polish health workers threaten strike over reforms

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Polish doctors and nurses on Wednesday threatened a nationwide strike over government plans to reform the health sector’s finances.

Some 200 trade union representatives demonstrated in front of parliament, where legislators debated a government bill proposing changes to the sector’s financing rules, which protesters say could force hospitals to close.

Poland has been struggling for years to reform public finances for its cash-strapped state-funded hospitals. The government hopes the new measures will force hospitals to become more efficient and more stringent in their accounting.

In July, parliament approved an emergency bill to prop up the crumbling healthcare system, which could otherwise face collapse this year.

The reforms would force state-financed hospitals - which make up the vast majority of medical establishments in Poland - to give up financial claims against the state in order to continue receiving government low-interest loans, so far keeping them afloat.

The new rules would also allow private debt collectors to draw on hospital accounts dedicated for wages, until now out of reach.

Union leaders, who have targeted individual hospitals around the country with strikes and hunger protests in the last five days, said they would call a nationwide strike if the bill was passed.

“We are very determined. We are fighting for the life of our patients,” Solidarity union official Maria Jolanta Ochman told Reuters. “If nothing changes, we will keep protesting all over the country.”

The Health Ministry argues the new bill would offer hospitals more help by promising them access to soft loans if they settle debts, forcing them to be more efficient.

“This bill doesn’t lead to the bankruptcy of hospitals - it is meant to help hospitals,” Health Minister Marek Balicki told a news conference. “It is supposed to prevent a critical situation.”

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