Local government expenditures on general hospitals. The ZPP showed the scale of expenditures
- The Association of Polish Counties has published a report on expenditure on general hospitals in 2015-2024.
- The publication is an annual study that provides local government officials and decision-makers with comprehensive knowledge about the financial involvement of local government units in the healthcare sector.
- In the period under analysis, counties and cities with county rights allocated a total of over PLN 9 billion for these purposes.
- A significant increase in investments occurred in 2017-2020.
As the Union of Employers (ZPP) emphasizes, healthcare financing is the responsibility of the Minister of Health and the National Health Fund. Despite this, local government units allocate billions of zlotys annually to support the system, including hospital operations.
The report by the Association of Polish Counties was prepared based on local government reporting data (RB-28s) from 2015-2024 and covers expenditures under section 85111 – general hospitals. The aim of the analysis is to present the structure and dynamics of expenditures and identify significant trends.
The most important conclusions from the report :
- in the years 2015-2024, counties and cities with county rights spent a total of over PLN 9 billion on general hospitals;
- the dominant position in the expenditure structure of both counties and cities with county rights is capital expenditure;
- in the case of rural counties, the large increase in expenses related to covering the negative financial result of hospitals in 2019-2021 is a cause for concern, the record value was nearly PLN 128 million in 2020 (in 2019 it was over PLN 90 million, and in 2021 PLN 50.7 million); in the opinion of the Union of Employers, the decline in this value in 2021-2024 was probably influenced by the entry into force of the judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal of 20 November 2019 and the deteriorating financial condition of counties.
As the Union of Employers (ZPP) emphasizes, the chart (above) of overall expenditures by counties and cities with county rights shows a clear shift in trends after 2020. While until 2020, expenditures by both types of local government units grew in parallel (with cities slightly outweighing them), from 2021 onward, counties significantly increased their expenditures – which may have resulted from the need to recapitalize county hospitals in a difficult financial situation. In cities with county rights, however, the expenditures stabilized and then declined.
