What are your experiences of care for your loved ones in hospitals here?

What are your experiences of care for your loved ones in hospitals here?

Black bags abound, albeit amateurishly covered in a white sheet, where the corpse is wheeled out in blatant view of the life partner and I feel desperately sorry for my MIL as she was not given the respect that a EU country demands.

I know it is a vast improvement on communist Poland where people were dressed at home after death but in a post communist Poland it is a ******* disgrace,

Death. Respected in posh Warsaw/private hospitals - or a (legally actionable) problem because of the infamous (criminally low) 9 per cent of GDP spent on Polish healthcare? Discuss.

Angry as fook for my very decent and hard-working father-in-law to be treated in this dog fashion.

I can compare my wife's experience with mine - in the UK in 1995:

UK: Closest kin can literally sleep with terminally ill relative in last few days ( of course this depends on individual need etc)
Poland : Varies in different hospitals and on different conditons/illnesses
UK: Marked sympathy/ separate rooms on the NHS
Poland: Separate rooms selectively available - notably in cancer wards
UK: Full access to doctors and consultants
Poland: Post communist genefluction and "gifts" to the overworked who live in huge houses( as a teacher I visit them) but work 18 hours a day because the Polish NHS still pays illegal salaries per EU rates so we have all these "private" clinics and hospitals American style, although this is not America.

UK: Clean and modern infrastructure
Poland: The same - in TV serials
UK: Ambulances sometime before the patient dies
Poland: Amazing interrogation before the ambulance service is even called - 40 minutes outside of city centres.
UK: Rooms for the grieving family to be treated with respect
Poland: Corridors for my wife to weep and hold her head in shame.

******* disgraceful. So glad I don't pay ZUS to the criminal Polish government.

I wouldnt like to have a serious illness here. I went to a private doctor and I met him at the public hospital where he used the hospital equipment. Crooks

We all know your political tendencies, no need to elaborate on them.
For the rest I am using Medicover, their hospital here in Warsaw is excellent. The only time when I am using NFZ is when I buy medicines.

I must admit, I don't remember. Nevertheless, I've had both good and bad experiences with Polish public sector hospitals - unfortunately the good ones were just slightly good and the bad ones were appalling including an intoxicated surgeon (I walked straight out and found a better hospital), doctors gossiping about patients within earshot of other patients as well as a doctor telling me that her colleague who'd been treating me earlier was incompetent.

I really do hope things are getting better. I have private cover from work that covers everything but have never actually needed to use it due to the excess being $100 and a decent private doctor costing a third of that.

you think that doesnt happen in the UK? How naive.
My son was rushed to hospital in Poland and I had no complaints, it was better than him dying.

Death is nothing to be ashamed of.


According to wiki it's even worse - 7%. UK has 9.6%

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_%28PPP%29_per_capita

And you are saying my wife should have to grieve in front of staring people? In a sick society like yours' - where people enjoy others' misfortune, maybe so..............

In the serials everybody gets the sympathetic professional treatment that in western Europe is taken as a given.

I am saying that if Poland wants to be a respected member of the EU then there needs to be some banging of heads as regards care for the bereaved - and sharpish.

Polish health care on death is quite disgusting at times - and as I suggested - very likely illegal and actionable - animals get better treatment. My fukk buddy is a vet and I get to see what goes down with animals and all is done quite gently and with suitable expressions of sympathy and regret.


I happen to use Medicover too - but that is NOT the point. People pay into the state system for 40 years and then they are treated as a problem. Maybe in communist Poland that was a given.

In the meantime some state hospitals are falling way short of EU guidelines as I suggested. I will try to get my wife to make an official complaint to the ombudsman but she will likely shrug her shoulders and say "It's done....".

The Polish disease............

Everybody agrees that health and judicial system are 2 biggest problems of Poland.

Merged: Hospitals

Good morning all,

I have recently been drawn into the Polish health system and have had the not so pleasurable experience of dealing with Doctors, nurses and quite a bit of time in hospital. I was diagnosed with cancer and have gone through 3 rounds of Chemotherapy ( all in the Onkologii Hospital In Ursynow, Warsaw )

The experience i had was shocking, the doctors and nurses lacked empathy, especially such a sensitive illness of cancer! I'm all clear of cancer for now but I can't help myself thinking about the whole experience and treatment I recieved ( as well as all Poles ) it was disgusting! For a country that wants to be Westernised, I strongly feel they need to include some lectures in UNI on how to manage people on a humanterian level.

Enough of my vent :)

Who here has had to deal with the Polish health system? And how have your experiences been?

Thanks for Sharing.

There are three distinct levels of problems as far as I can see. I have lived in several different countries thus I have a decent frame of reference to compare.

First of all, the mother of all evil, NFZ. Stupidly long waiting lists for anything other than seeing a general practitioner. For example, to see Neurologist 3-4 months, and to have MRI done, 11-12 months! Thus I often ended up paying separately. For example, to have MRI done, I called several places last year in December and said I was covered under NFZ, and the earliest kind of commitment I got was from one place that said they would call me in June-July to schedule the test for November. I said I would pay by myself, they said I could come the very following week.

Second problem, inadequate training of staff, in particular on social matters. This is what leads to a perceived lack of empathy from medical workers. Although I have experienced this in several other countries and some were much worse than in Poland.

Third problem, bureaucracy. Sometimes internal transfer of instructions or referrals within the same hospital can take hours or days - all the while someone is in pain and agony...

Overall, I cannot fathom how the person who was in charge of the health care system became the prime minister. To me, this shows clearly that the selection was not based on competence - to say the least.

What the hell that means?

Thank you for your response Polsyr. I totally agree with everything you have stated. Especially, that it's much faster and easier to pay the doctor at his private practice to not wait for those ridiculous waiting times.

Wulkan, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westernization

I hear from my wife that out here in the back of beyond (deep in the Podkarpacie) it is a story of similar bad treatment, but she thinks it is all to do with local culture of a sort. Just the other day she went to hospital to have a small growth on a finger removed.....she said the nurse was shouting at people waiting, ordering them around and generally treating them like dirt. My wife not used to this kind of treatment after 30 years in UK gave the nurse a good talking to and told her that these people she was treating badly were paying her wages, so could she speak with a civil tongue to them instead of ordering them around like dogs!! the nurse was taken aback and completely changed her attitude.....but just to my wife, she knew who she could and couldn't treat badly, that kind of thing is part and parcel of the culture in these parts. I will not say anything about people paying doctors with cash/goods/work etc, but I have noted that local doctors seem to be very wealthy with large land holdings, large houses, new expensive cars, but hey what do I know.....my wife thinks country doctors 'make' more than town doctors. Local people also tell us that it takes ages (months) to get an appointment with a specialist, so they all pay for 'private' appointments, my wife says this is nonsense and the two times she has needed a specialist the appointment has been for a couple of weeks hence? make of it what you will.

I've had a couple of encounters myself (all in Podkarpackie as well) and had no major problem except the chaotic queue system where you have to ask everyone around you who's next in line. Signed up for a GP and she's been great, took quite an interest in the problem, sent me to a specialist, got appt in 1 week, went back several times & never had to wait longer than a week. Allergy tests took the longest time for an appt which was a 2 month wait, but they've just opened a new allergy center close by so should reduce those wait times. Smashed my thumb in playing volleyball once out back of beyond and got driven to the local hospital for treatment where both the doctors and nurses were a great laugh and quickly dealt with the issue. Had a CAT scan done once, wait time was 1.5 weeks. All covered on NFZ. I have heard of some horror stories (probably embellished a bit to make the story better as well) and seen a couple of pretty harshly sounding nurses but I've also seen a fair share of rudeness from the patient side of things too.

[moved from]


I hear you Doug , and I can read between the lines, I'm not staying either, five year itch and all that, big world out there, I had an episode of anaphylactic shock. last nigh, they wouldn't treat me until my wife found the paperwork in the bottom of her handbag took ages to photocopy.

**** after treatment the doctor said I was lucky, because came so quickly for treatment (**** if I was polish born like 4 million which do not have healthcare I might be dead)

Stuff em did dad have to show hi dowot when he was hit by shrapnel at cassino , did the heros of the Warsaw uprising need to show paperwork before their wounds were tended to, **** poland needs to wake up and take care of its people whos parents and grandparents were probably heroes of the Polish struggle for freedom.

Shame on Poland that puts money before life, 500 plus at one end, pay or you die at the other....****

Sorry mod hot topic for me

Wow. Sorry to hear that, not good. Take good care bud. It seems from your above link that they are finally going to do something about the dog abuse problem, but this love of bureaucracy is ridiculous. I remember you couldn't be admitted into A and E in the UK hospital system unless you quoted your postcode.

Madness.

Yeah bad for rough sleeper but they could at least quote the code from the street hey were sleeping in well london at least.

And yes I probably would have waited four hours (like last time) in the uk before i was treated, by which time the rash had reached my throat and I couldn't breathe.

I got straight in at the polish hospital apart from the insurance debacle I was treated with four shots of antihistamine and a icu bed was organised in case of complications.

But Sh$it what makes me special cos I have cash to pay insurance, what about the poor sods who I give beer zloty and fags to that are out of the system. are there lives less worthy than mine , I think not.

Golly Dolno, I'm so sorry to hear that. You poor thing. All the best to you and Mrs Dolno and get well soon.


Well now here's my own story from just a couple of weeks and this really beggars belief.

Mr Atch's health insurance (and thus mine as spouse) is normally covered by his job. However it had lapsed as he was in the process of changing jobs and decided to take the summer off. As we're both in good health without any chronic conditions health insurance never enters out heads as a rule (silly I know) and what should happen but a medical emergency at 5 o' clock in the morning, so we had to call 911 as opposed to the hotline that normally goes with an insurance package (although I didn't even know there was such a thing!). Anyway - you won't belive this, he's lying on the floor, in the worst pain of his life, on the verge of losing consciousness and your woman on the switchboard says 'do you think we send ambulances to people just because they have a pain in their stomach. Go to the Apteka and get ibuprofen and No-Spa'.

When we finally managed to get to the hospital a couple of hours later, they told him it was stress. Next day he was back there - more tests - kidney stones.

Now, ok, kidney stones are not life threatening but how did the old cow on the switchboard know what he had? It could have been a burst ulcer or appendix and he could have died. To be refused an ambulance is outrageous. My sister worked as a volunteer paramedic in Germany and as she said, it's not up to the switchboard to make a medical diagnosis, even if the switchboard were being manned by a trained paramedic or nurse. A diagnosis cannot be made over the phone. Their role is to send the ambulance who make an assessment and decide whether the person can be treated on the spot or needs to be admitted to hospital.

I'm also not satisfied with the treatment he received on his initial visit as they did a scan which included the kidneys and missed the presence of the kidney stone. There were also a couple of other minor things that showed up which he wasn't told about and which I only spotted because I read the test results (had to put them in Google translate, my Polish is not THAT good!). They're not serious things but could potentially be if they're not monitored. He should have been told about them and given advice.

By the way he wasn't covered by ZUS despite having paid a fortune in contributions as he wasn't registered as 'unemployed' so we had to pay for the tests, a few hundred.

Anyway, on the second visit he was prescribed the necessary meds (although for some bizarre reason he was given a course of antibiotics in addition to the other stuff. The doctor had said there was no sign of infection so I wouldn't let him take the anti-biotics. You shouldn't take them unless you really need them) and thankfully the stones dissolved enough to be passed without needing intervention.

Mr Atch said that the staff in the first hospital were 'quite nice' though with the usual brusque manner. However he was then transferred to a second hospital where he said it was Poland B despite being in Warsaw. He said the place was in a shocking state and that the staff were at best socially inept, including the doctor who dealt with him. He said 'I was treated ok, because I looked 'respectable' but their manner with other patients..........'

But to me, the worst part of the whole thing was the refusal to send an ambulance. I find that utterly shocking and really frightening.

I'm afraid it's that Banana Republic vibe which crops up all the time in PoIand that can't I cope with. If you have money and can afford a private ambulance you're ok. If you're just an 'ordinary' person you could die on the floor of your own home. It disgusts me. Ireland may have its faults but you would never, never be refused an ambulance.

Exactly Atch. Nothing short of criminal, and like I said, a total abdication of state responsibility; a frightening story, and you will both need a good rest to get over it. Glad to hear your maz is OK. Poland is alright - just don't get ill. That is probably the main reason I will be moving wifey out of here presently - there is no sympathy and respect for the aged in ole Polska. (not referring to yourselves of course!)

Ther is now a law I believe where the ambulance service (doctor/paramedic) can write out a 500 zl fine if they "decide" you have called the ambulance unnecessarily. Obvious result? The aged dying alone and unloved in their homes because they are too frightened to call an ambulance.

Scum doesn't even begin to describe some of these law-makers (all of them on private healthcare schemes).


Disgraceful thievery. As if ZUS don't earn enough from the individual. I too close down my Spolka C. sometimes in the summer. Not recently though. Stopped paying ZUS for two years but business changed and now back in the "system", which we all obviously hate, and which should have been a priority if this social governmnet had really wanted to help small business. Why the hell your husband wouldn't be covered in some form is beyond logic (couldn't he have paid the health part of ZUS, not the pension part?)

Sorry for your hubby, I had the same kidney stone episode in the UK, the agony was unbearable, the nurse said that's the closest and man will come to experiencing the pain of giving birth.

Yeah if you are one of I think they say 4 million poles that do not work or are not registered as unemployed you are basically stuffed.

They were down right nasty to start off with until they had proof of insurance , I had gone all quiet because of the attack, I was also very scruffy because I had just finished the day working outdoors , I felt I was being financially and socially evaluated before a decision to treat me was made.

There was talk about Poland moving to proper universal care like the UK but the government has shelved it for now (I think), I am considering paying into Zus as well as my existing provider so at least something comes up on the computer, Jesus the receptionist had gone off to xerox my passport and insurance documents, the doctor told me to sit and shut up until the receptionist returned and she could evaluate the documents AGAIN herself

Dudes, health services 'free' for all is just a scam that doesn't work that good. It might work slightly better in the uk than in Poland but only just. A private insurance - that the way to go about it.

You are very wrong there especially if you need quality cancer care, private insurance cover is designed to fade away or exclude you as you get older.

It's even worse here in the U.S.A. Dolno were only the rich and welfare have the privilege to be able to have healthcare insurance.

Poland is blessed as the middle class people that toil for a living here are s out of luck. (About $15,000 a year to insure a family of three.)

obama care has a $2000 deductible and most doctors and hospitals refuse to take it because there is to much unaffordable paperwork for them that goes with it.

Not to say that Poland's political health care policies itself are forty years behind times to humanity.

Only if you control what they can charge. Otherwise things get out of hand like in the U.S.. Same is true for the pharmaceuticals. Give them freedom to price their pills any way they want, and you will end up with medication that is almost unaffordable and drives insurance premiums through the roof.

I did. For the total of about 30 minutes and my opinion was formed for life. I wrote about my experience with that rotten system here and the s*** I got for it was unbelievable. No, I didn't have cancer like you. Just an ordinary case of bronchitis. The a-holes at the clinic wouldn't even accept my credit card. Had to be cash. Saturday night. Cash only. Next day, I was on my way back home to Chicago. Never f****** again.

Whereas the uk system is clogged by the old people. Neither system is working smoothly.

OK Ironside...so what are we paying 300 zlotys plus a month for then? It's mandatory ZUS. Am I supposed to pay twice? State theft, that's just what it is.


Where did you get that from Ironside? Medical prescriptions show that the French are the biggest users of medicine. Poland is second.

I am have been through one heart attack in 2011 and a prostate cancer in 2015. Plus several colonoscopies and minor surgeries. The American Medicare health delivery is perfect. I was not ignored, mistreated, and never had to wait more that a week to see a specialist. Every single person I came in contact with was friendly and helpful. Not a single nurse, doctor, or anyone in the administration had an attitude. They also will engage in small talk and appreciate patients with a sense of humor. I can only imagine how much fun it is to work in the oncology department.

Bottom line: If you have to get sick, the US is the place to do it.

Highly depends on the hospital from downright awful to excellent in my experience...

For nothing, it is just another tax, as I said they tax work this way - it is a post soviet system. Soviet Poland mixed with some elements of capitalism a big ugly BS with a big S''ty so called constitution that constitutes post-commie system in a country. That all should be scarped and build on new foundations.

Don't get me stared what should be radically changed in Poland. Lots!


look up stats Dougie. Another truism which age group generally uses medical services more than other- old people and children. With the old people being a main issue here.