Łukasz Szumowski, the minister of health, promised in a June interview for public television that Polish patients would not wait more than 30 days for imaging tests at the end of the year as a matter of urgency. With computed tomography, the goal was achieved.
- According to data collected by the Alivia Foundation on the Kolejkoskop.pl website, the average waiting time for a computed tomography scan is 29 days on average.
- The situation with access to magnetic resonance continues to be dramatic. The waiting time for this urgent examination is 106 days
- Worse, the inequalities between regions in access to research are widening. The Foundation has launched a day counter to fulfill the promise of the minister of health
Repeatedly, public representatives of the Ministry of Health have indicated as a priority shortening the waiting time for cataract treatment, arthroplasty and diagnostic imaging tests. Performing the latter is extremely necessary in the field of oncology, where they are used not only to diagnose the disease, but also to assess the effectiveness of the implemented treatment.
– As part of the “Piggy bank” program, we help over 300 patients to collect funds for treatment-related expenses. Very often we encounter a situation in which the collected money is used not only to finance non-reimbursed drugs, but also diagnostics. The information provided by patients shows that they decide to take such a step mainly due to the long waiting time for examinations within the public system – says Maja Kochanowska, coordinator of the “Piggy bank” program at the Alivia Oncology Foundation.
Recently, the National Health Fund has allocated additional funds to shorten the waiting time for diagnostic imaging. The data of the Alivia Foundation, which collects information about queues for computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, prove that the actions taken allowed to shorten the queues slightly. For computed tomography we managed to shorten the average waiting time in urgent procedure up to 29 days.
62 days patients who have received a referral have to wait in normal mode. Inequalities between regions are growing. It happens that in one voivodship it is better to receive an ordinary referral (eg Podlasie) than in other urgent procedures (Małopolska) – the differences are even threefold. The situation is similar in the case of magnetic resonance imaging. In standard mode, patients wait from 110 to 245 days, depending on the voivodeship, and urgent – from 31 to 165 days.
The Alivia Oncology Foundation has launched a day calculator on the website www.kolejkoskop.pl for the implementation of the promise of Minister Łukasz Szumowski. As of today, the health ministry has 129 days to shorten the urgent waiting time for magnetic resonance imaging to one month. The next publication of the results collected under the Kolejkoskop.pl program is scheduled for October.