Philip Urbansky, who analyzes data from the National Health Fund, has debunked the myth of “2.4 doctors per 1,000 people. population”. His post on Twitter caused quite a stir.
“I see that the legend of 2.4 doctors per 1000 population is still alive. I will briefly explain why this is an incorrect statistic,” Urbansky began his entry. In the following parts of the post, he presented why, in his opinion, this is not the right data and how to calculate it correctly.
Number of doctors in Poland. Why are we so bad compared to Europe?
According to Urbanski, international comparisons that refer to “doctors who work with patients” are interpreted in different ways.
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According to the Central Register of Physicians alone, 160,000 physicians are currently registered. doctors. This gives 4.2 doctors per 1,000 people. Population. This figure should be deducted by persons who are engaged in other activities, while retaining the right to engage in professional activities.
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In turn, NHF data on the number of doctors declared to fulfill contracts with NHF show 117.6 thousand people. that is, 3.1 per 1,000 population in 2021. However, this does not include doctors who do not work under contracts with the NFZ and continue to work with patients.
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In this case, according to the analyst of the National Health Fund, it is possible, for example, to conduct an analysis on individual doctors, analyzing who is the payer of their contributions. - If the subject, carrying out medical activities, the doctor can be considered “working with the patient”, - explains Philip Urbansky. Such data can be found in the Central Statistical Office.
In 2019, there were 125.3 thousand of them. doctors working with the patient, i.e. approximately 3.3 doctors per 1,000 residents, the expert found in his Twitter post. To this he added the number 33.6 thousand. dentists. His calculations were evaluated by Health Minister Adam Nedzielski.
Controversy surrounding the count of the number of doctors in Poland
However, not everyone was as supportive of these data as Adam Nedzielski. Some Twitter users have accused Filip Urbanski of manipulation.
“Please update the rest of the countries in the same way. We will talk about how you will move all the pawns on the board, and not just one selected one,” wrote one user.
“Dear sir, your arguments run counter to reality. Firstly, these statistics include not only doctors 65+, but also 70 and 80+,” added another.
In turn, Patrik Slovik from the Polish Army wrote: “Reliable information”, that is, the chart cut in half, which means that many countries that are doing much better than Poland were not included.
Even if the result is actually 3.3/1000, it is still 1/5 less than the European average.
Source: Wprost
