Present principles of workers' health care organization in Poland and directions of future changes

The present-day legal regulations on workers' health care are far from satisfactory. The work on the modification of the occupational health service has been carried out for the last two years although the preparatory activities started much earlier. In May 1991, under the initiative of the Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine in Lodz, the bill on the Labor Code has been amended so that it would regulate the employer's responsibilities with respect to providing health care for workers and to participating in respective costs. These activities have overrun the more general ones pertaining to the reform of the national health service in Poland. Under conditions of the growing free market economy the previously operated organizational system of health care for workers has become out-of-date and needs immediate modification to adjust it to the new economic situation. Evidently, the trends and rate of the policy in this respect have been considerably influenced by the more general activities to make Poland associated with the European Community and hence to develop an occupational health care system which would take into consideration the principles of the Charter of Social Rights of the EEC as well as of the ILO Conventions.