A study commissioned by the “Solidarity of Health” Federation confirms that raising salaries in “Health Care” significantly improves the quality of medical services, trade unions assume that “in the conditions of the negative impact of inflation” even higher salaries are needed in the industry. .

The satisfaction of patients with medical services, doctors or paramedics increased significantly from 2017 to 2023 in the context of increasing the salaries of medical personnel, according to the press release of the Federation “Solidarity of Health”.

“The first conclusion is obvious: in the health care system, salary growth leads to an increase in the quality of medical services. That is, the positive effect of the salary increase is obvious. This needs to be analyzed in the context of the existence of numerous inequalities in wages, disruptions caused by the pandemic and, above all, in the context of the negative impact of inflation.”

“If we want to maintain or increase the effect, we must maintain and strengthen the reward system. Now we are in a situation where we are watching the level of rewards collapsing due to inflation, their renewal and recalculation are still being refused,” the quoted source added.

The number of patients who say they were asked for money or attention is decreasing

“The analysis was carried out within the framework of the Sociological Center “Solidarity”, based exclusively on the processing of information from open sources.

The study was conducted with the following hypothesis in mind: if previous salary increases had a significant effect on the quality of health care and on the migration of health workers, then this is the direction to follow in order to improve patient satisfaction.

The study highlighted a significant increase in the quality of medical services, which occurred in the context of wage increases from 2017 to 2023,” the report said.

According to the study, improvements in the quality of health care services demonstrate both a significant increase in patient satisfaction and a decrease in the percentage of patients who indicate that they have been asked for money or attention.

“The increase in the salaries of health care workers correlates with a decrease in the number of patients who indicated that they were approached for money or attention, this indicator reached the level of 1.8% (compared to 4.1% before the salary increase))” – the document says.

Many patients say they are satisfied

In addition, according to the same study, patient satisfaction with the services offered by hospitals has also increased.

“In the period 2017-2023, the growth of approx. 37% of the percentage of patients who say they are very satisfied with the services offered by hospitals (an additional difference of 13.6 percentage points) and a decrease of approx. 33% of patients declare that they are not satisfied.

The number of cases in which patients declare that they will instruct a person to be treated in this hospital increased during the period of salary increase by approx. 5%, recording an additional difference of 4 percentage points,” the “Solidarity of Health” Federation notes.

The study also shows that satisfaction with doctors and nurses has also increased.

“In the period 2017-2023, the growth of approx. The 14% percentage of patients who state that they are very satisfied with the work of doctors (an additional difference of 8 percentage points) can be seen as a very high level of this indicator compared to other estimates.

A correlation of increased patient satisfaction with increased salary income was also reported for nurses, with approximately a 30% increase in the number of patients reporting that they were very satisfied with the work of nurses (an additional difference of 12 percentage points).

We can observe that the maximum level of satisfaction is lower in the case of nurses than in the case of doctors, one of the possible explanations is the significantly lower rate of increase in wage income in the case of nurses,” the release states.