By 2025, by 10% the number of people not engaging in physical activity and abusing alcohol should decrease. Until then, the increase in the percentage of obese and diabetic people is to be stopped – envisages the draft of the National Health Program.
As announced on Wednesday by the Employers of Poland, on Tuesday a meeting with Deputy Minister of Health Beata Małecka-Libera and the national consultant for public health prof. Mirosław Wysocki. During it, the draft act on public health was presented for the first time. An element of this act is the National Health Program.
During the meeting, the minister emphasized that the project is short and relatively simple, because it aims to draw attention to the problem of public health and thus take the first step towards legal regulation of this issue. The project is to create a framework for the preparation of a broader National Health Program based on objective indicators, as well as to support the coordination of activities of individual institutions in the field of public health and to define the framework for financing pro-health projects, the Employers of the Republic of Poland informed in a release sent to PAP.
Among the main assumptions of the National Health Program presented to the Employers of the Republic of Poland by Małecka-Libera, there is a reduction by 2025% by 10. the number of people who do not engage in physical activity, as well as harmful drinkers. Another is the reduction of smoking by 2 percentage points over five years. and reducing obesity and diabetes by 2025.
In the announcement of Employers of the Republic of Poland, we also read that the draft act on public health assumes the coordination of spending funds on health protection by all ministries and local government units. Preventive programs and educational campaigns would be financed from the funds of the Ministry of Health and other ministries that have items related to public health in their budget.
Funds for this would also come from a sub-fund established by the National Health Fund (from 1% of the budget) and from the Public Health Fund, supported by a part of excise tax revenues (1% of funds from excise duty on alcohol, 0,5% from excise duty on tobacco and 3% of the excise tax on gambling).
It is estimated that in the first year of the law being in force – in 2016 – about PLN 1,5 billion will be spent on prevention. A very important announcement is also the creation of a new contractual product – preventive advice. This will certainly increase the availability of prophylaxis and draw doctors’ attention to this issue – reads the next part of the communication.
The employers of the Republic of Poland emphasized that an important point of the project is to coordinate issues in the field of public health. According to its provisions, the following institutions would be established: the Government Plenipotentiary for Public Health (in the rank of the secretary of state in the Ministry of Health), the Steering Committee of the National Health Program (consisting of ministers or deputy ministers of the ministries covered by the program) and the Public Health Council (as the consultative and advisory).
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Health announced that the draft law on public health was referred to internal consultations. Next week, after their completion, the draft is to be submitted to public consultations and inter-ministerial consultations. There will be 30 days for submitting comments.
Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz informed in mid-February that the draft prepared by Małecka-Libera was ready. As she said then, this act will be a breakthrough in the Polish health care system.
The Act on the Public Health System is to integrate health-related activities currently carried out by many institutions. At the moment, some tasks rest with local governments, some with state institutions, such as the Ministry of Health, the National Health Fund or the Sanepid; there are also institutions that deal with single problems, such as the State Agency for Solving Alcohol Problems. The draft act is to enable the integration of all such activities, adopting the principle of assessing health needs, creating a national health program, and adjusting public health activities to the voivodeship programs that are being developed at the same time. (PAP)