For operating an Emergency Department, the Bolesławiec county hospital could have received between PLN 1,500 and PLN 3,200 per day from the National Health Fund in 2005. An Admissions Unit brought in between PLN 500 and PLN 1,000. When contracts were being signed, the hospital presented documents stating that it had an Emergency Department. The National Health Fund therefore signed a contract to finance such a unit and transferred money for nearly eleven months. The hospital received PLN 1,500. The October inspection revealed that the department did not exist.
“The hospital paid a PLN 13,000 fine,” says the hospital’s recently appointed director, Urszula Fuchs. Fortunately, the county facility will face no other consequences. Joanna Mierzwińska, press spokesperson for the National Health Fund, explains that the Fund went easy on the hospital. “The Fund will not demand repayment of the entire subsidy transferred, amounting to nearly PLN 500,000,” explains Joanna Mierzwińska. The Bolesławiec hospital will return only the portion of the money it would not have received if the Admissions Unit had been contracted instead of the Emergency Department—PLN 1,000 per day rather than PLN 1,500. In this case, approximately PLN 165,000 will be returned to the National Health Fund by Bolesławiec.
After the contract with the Fund was terminated, the Admissions Unit was financed solely from the hospital’s own funds for 37 days last year. For 2006, it was contracted correctly. The daily cost of maintaining the unit is approximately PLN 2,700. The National Health Fund reimburses PLN 1,000.