Today’s papers look at issues in public health care, meteorites falling through peoples roofs and the death of the Poland Comes First part before it even started.
Magdalena Jensen reviews the press
The daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna reports that Polish hospitals are short of 50,000 nurses and that number is expected to increase due after loosening restrictions for foreign nurses in the British Isles. Until now, nurses from new European Union member states who did not have proper qualifications – such as a bachelor’s or master’s in medical studies – were required to undergo a rigorous 6-month adaptation course. Now, however, the UK will only require a two-day test in theory and practical skills. The paper writes that the Union of Nurses and Midwives fears that this means that the HR situation in Polish hospitals is bound to worsen.
Rzeczpospolita headlines that the National Health Fund is pinning hospitals up against the wall as doctors are accusing the public fund of doing everything possible to pay doctors less. The paper reports that, yesterday, the Parliamentary Health Commission announced that the state dentistry program has been allocated 120 million less zloty (about 40 million euro) this year than in 2009. The head of the dentistry commission is accusing National Health Fund officials of using any tricks possible to justify the budgets cuts such as siphoning people out of emergency care so that hospitals don’t have to shoulder treatment costs. The paper writes that there is always too little money for hospitals and that health officials will have to start seeking additional money from somewhere as patients expectations are also higher.
Gazeta Wyborcza reports that a meteorite fell through the roof of an unsuspecting resident of the Masurian Lakes District in northeastern Poland. The man was smoking his morning cigarette with a cup of coffee when he heard what he then thought was a bomb fall through the roof of his home. The cold rock left a hole in the man’s roof and was the first meteorite to land in Poland in 17 years that people were witness to. The incident was recorded by the Polish Meteorite Society and scientists were forced to purchase fragments of the rock for testing as – writes the daily – the man who’s house was damaged has decided to make some money off the meteorite rather than give it over to scientific testing. Gazeta Wyborcza writes that there is no law that requires people to hand over meteorites for testing for free, so there is no way to categorize it as an archeological finding and requisition it.
The tabloid Fakt writes that the political trading game before parliamentary elections has started and it seems that many people from the newly-formed Poland Comes First have found themselves starting for Civic Platform. The daily writes that Poland Comes First may not even be able to form its own list of candidates to parliament considering all of the problems it’s been facing – including the week-long court battle to register the party’s name. The tabloid reports that it is simply too risky and too expensive to try to run as a Poland Comes First candidate, as such, people who claimed to be on that ticket – like Joanna Kluzik-Rostowska – have turned to other parties. So, perhaps Poland Comes First will be vanquished before it starts out as a legal political party?