Leszczyna on minimum wages in health: the law needs to be improved

Minister of Health Izabela Leszczyna was asked on Wednesday (14 May) at a press conference about the act on minimum wages in health care and the meeting announced by Deputy Minister Szafranowicz.

- The tripartite team asked us to discuss the act on June 9. This does not mean that the Minister of Health has announced changes to the act - Izabela Leszczyna stated.

She added that the Act in its current form will once again result in pay rises on July 1 - "hospital managers will be obliged to pay specific amounts to employees".

According to the mechanism provided for in the act, minimum wages in healthcare are adjusted annually based on the Central Statistical Office index. The rates are calculated as the product of the average wage and the index assigned to individual professional groups.

The Minister of Health assessed that this act requires changes.

- If you ask me whether this law requires improvement, of course it does - she told the journalist.

- I have said many times that the difference between the group of 5 and 6 nurses and the 2nd - in my opinion, with absolute respect for highly educated nurses, because they have enormous competences, but taking into account today's organization and functioning of hospitals - this difference is definitely too big - said the head of the Ministry of Health.

In her opinion, the difference between a doctor with specialization and a nurse with a degree in specialization is "too small".

- And in fact, all other systems in Europe also show that in our case the flattening is too great - she added.

The Act on establishing minimum wages in health care arouses emotions in every environment.

- The community is ready to fiercely defend this solution - Sebastian Goncerz, chairman of the OZZL Residents' Agreement, recently said about the annual indexation of the lowest salaries of healthcare workers. He referred to the declaration of the president of the Supreme Medical Council during EEC 2025.

During one of the debates during the European Economic Congress, Filip Nowak , president of the National Health Fund, stated that the act indexing minimum wages in public health care had already fulfilled its role, so it would be necessary to take a closer look at its assumptions and consider whether they meet current needs.

During the same discussion panel, the head of the National Football League, Łukasz Jankowski, expressed his readiness to debate the issue of wages, but he set certain conditions for the government.

In turn, nurses are demanding a return to work on their draft amendment to the act, which has been in the Sejm for a dozen or so months and envisages changes from January 2025.

The July indexation of minimum wages in health care may cost from PLN 8.5 billion to PLN 17.1 billion.

What will this year's rates look like? For example:

• According to the Act, doctors and dentists with specialization employed under an employment contract from July 1 will earn a minimum of PLN 11,863 gross (currently PLN 10,375 gross).
• Nurses with a master's degree and specialization PLN 10,554 gross (currently PLN 9,230 gross).
• Doctors without specialization - PLN 9,736 gross (currently PLN 8,515 gross).
• Nurses with a bachelor's degree and specialization or with secondary education and specialization - PLN 8,345 gross (currently PLN 7,298 gross).

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