A clear majority of Poles support separating doctors’ employment in the public and private healthcare sectors, according to an IBRiS poll conducted for the daily Rzeczpospolita.
Overall, 53.5 percent of respondents oppose allowing doctors to work simultaneously in both the public and private healthcare systems, including 33.3 percent who are strongly opposed and 20.2 percent who are rather opposed. Meanwhile, 40.6 percent support allowing doctors to combine employment in both sectors, including 15.3 percent who are strongly in favor and 25.3 percent who are rather in favor. Another 5.9 percent said they had no opinion on the issue.
Support for separating doctors’ employment was higher among opposition voters, reaching 57 percent. Among supporters of the governing coalition, 51 percent backed the proposal.
The survey also revealed significant differences depending on place of residence. In towns with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants, seven in ten respondents favored separating the two sectors. By contrast, residents of the largest cities were more likely to support maintaining the current system, with 54 percent backing doctors’ right to work in both public and private healthcare.
The proposal was most popular among respondents with primary or vocational education, with a combined 64 percent supporting a ban on dual practice. Among university graduates, only one quarter favored separating the sectors, while half wanted doctors to retain the option of working in both.
Poles call for greater transparency
Marcin Martyniak, director of the Provincial Integrated Hospital in Kielce and a former deputy health minister, said the findings may reflect public demand for greater transparency in the healthcare system. However, he cautioned that the sizeable share of respondents supporting the current model means there is no clear social consensus justifying the immediate introduction of a total ban.
Martyniak also noted that respondents may have interpreted the idea of separating the two sectors differently. For some, it could mean a complete ban on additional employment, while others may have understood it as limiting total working hours, eliminating conflicts of interest, or prohibiting doctors from providing certain services in both systems.
“Recently, several political parties have argued that public and private healthcare should be separated. To this day, however, no one has explained what that would actually involve,”
healthcare expert Wojciech Wiśniewski told the newspaper.
Wiśniewski added that a straightforward separation of the two sectors would also be difficult because of the way Poland’s healthcare system is currently organized. Primary healthcare is provided almost entirely by private entities, while around 70 percent of specialist outpatient clinics also operate privately. A strict ban could therefore lead some providers to terminate their contracts with the National Health Fund (NFZ), creating problems with transferring their patients to other facilities.
The proposal to prohibit doctors from working simultaneously in both the public and private healthcare systems has been put forward by both the Law and Justice (PiS) party and The Left (Lewica). Supporters argue that such a measure would help eliminate cases in which patients treated privately gain faster access to procedures funded by the National Health Fund by bypassing the official waiting list.
The government, however, is considering a different approach. Waiting lists for hospital procedures would be subject to stricter oversight through the AP-KOLCE system operated by the National Health Fund. A draft regulation introducing the changes has already been submitted for public consultation.
The IBRiS poll for Rzeczpospolita was conducted on June 10-11 using the CATI (computer-assisted telephone interviewing) method on a nationwide sample of 1,067 respondents.