The latest data from the Alivia Cancer Foundation leave no illusions – Polish patients cannot be quickly diagnosed for neoplastic diseases. The queues for diagnostic imaging are to blame for everything.
It turns out that depending on the voivodship, the waiting time for the examination may vary up to three times, and in some regions it is possible to get to the regular mode faster than elsewhere in the emergency mode. This is a grim joke about patients who are fighting for their health. Politicians and experts always say that the most important thing is quick diagnostics. How are we supposed to do it, if a patient from Mazovia has to wait 5 months for a chest resonance imaging. On CITO! – says Bartosz Poliński, President of the Foundation. He announces that he will apply to the government to enter into the regulation of the Minister of Health the maximum waiting time for the examination and to create a central database of devices in order to make the most of them.
The Alivia Foundation runs the Kolejkoskop portal, which helps several hundred thousand patients find the shortest queue for an MRI or CT scan every year, depending on the type of referral received (regular mode, CITO and oncological diagnosis and treatment card). Since the fourth quarter of 2017, it has been publishing this data, because then the National Health Fund transferred significant funds to unload long queues. The most important conclusions from the analyzes are the exceptionally long waiting time for tests, which may be of decisive importance for the diagnosis of cancer, and large inequalities in access to public health care.
The results of the latest ranking remain under no illusions. The postal code is still important for how quickly the patient gets access to the necessary tests. In the case of computed tomography, a patient from Silesia urgently waits half as long as a patient from Podlasie, who was referred by a doctor in the standard procedure. This is despite the fact that they both pay the same premium. Magnetic resonance imaging is even more absurd. Patients from several provinces are waiting for urgent examinations twice or even three times longer than patients from the Świętokrzyskie Province or, again, Podlaskie Province.
The above-mentioned data are shocking also because experts agree that there is a correlation between the effectiveness of cancer treatment and the severity of the disease at diagnosis. According to the information provided by the Supreme Chamber of Control, the speed of diagnosis is not improved by the oncology package, which provides faster diagnostics to a few and selected patients1. We also see the problem with the availability of diagnostic tests at the Foundation level. In 2017 alone, we donated nearly PLN 200 to our charges to finance research. Without them, patients and their attending physicians would not be able to check the effectiveness of the implemented treatment. It is thanks to the funds obtained thanks to the 1 percent campaign. or the Skarbonka program, we are able to help Polish cancer patients in the war against cancer – adds Bartosz Poliński.
The Alivia Foundation promises to take decisive action. Today, a letter will be sent to the Ministry of Health with a request to ensure access to tests in a timely manner. Guaranteeing the waiting time for the service is one of the postulates prepared by over 40 patient organizations in the course of the discussion on changing the health care system, which has been going on since the protest of the residents’ community. The organization will also appeal, for the third time, to create a publicly available database of diagnostic devices that will allow to assess their degree of use. Letters drawing attention to inequalities in access to public health care have already been sent to the Patient Ombudsman and the Ombudsman.