Health minister pledges salary caps and working hour limits after Warsaw hospital scandal

Scandal prompts immediate audits

Reports that a doctor and Civic Coalition (KO) councilor, Dawid Kacprzyk, earned more than 1.5 million złoty in a year at Warsaw's Szpital Południowy triggered swift state action. On 15 June, the president of the National Health Fund (NFZ), Filip Nowak, ordered the first control. Health Minister Jolanta Sobierańska-Grenda told a press conference on 25 June that "everything that can undermine patients' trust and sense of safety in the healthcare system should be clarified in a very reliable and thorough manner." She warned against generalising the case to all emergency departments and medical staff, but said the ministry was coordinating with the Ministry of Justice to ensure transparency in access to public healthcare.

Pay transparency and the elimination of "kominy płacowe"

Sobierańska-Grenda confirmed that some hospitals now spend up to 100 percent of their budget on salaries. "We want to eliminate pay peaks. We must create a dialogue where this will be possible," she said. On the same day the Senate passed an amendment that will allow the authorities to verify medical salaries using PESEL national identification numbers, and from 1 July public-sector healthcare entities will be obliged to report their contracts to the Central Register of Contracts. The ministry is working on extending this obligation to all types of provider. At the conference it also said it is readying legislative options that would set a percentage or amount limit on the share of NFZ contracts that a given unit can spend on pay.

Dr Grażyna Cebula-Kubat, head of the Ogólnopolski Związek Zawodowy Lekarzy (OZZL), criticised the PESEL-based approach.

“Checking earnings by PESEL number, without hours worked and number of contracts per month, will change little and may increase disinformation and aggression toward medical staff.”

She argued that real pay peaks affect only a narrow group of doctors with unique skills and that the government should instead focus on creating health-needs maps for each voivodeship.

Working hours cap under consideration

The minister highlighted a structural problem: staff on employment contracts are subject to working-time limits, but those working through B2B (self-employed) contracts face no upper cap. "It seems reasonable and we are considering an option to set an upper limit on worked hours," Sobierańska-Grenda said. Proposals mentioned include a ceiling of 300 hours or lower. The ministry will discuss the idea with the medical self-government at a meeting scheduled for 9 July.

Broader healthcare reform takes shape

Beyond the immediate scandal response, the Ministry of Health presented the main pillars of a wider reform. It aims to encourage local governments to consolidate hospitals, re-profile wards towards long-term care to match Poland's ageing population, and "invert the care pyramid" by shifting services from hospitals to primary and ambulatory care. As of 1 July, 1.1 billion złoty from the Medical Fund will become available for hospital investments, with further financing earmarked from the National Recovery Plan.