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🇵🇱 Poland /Economy & Trade

Doctors' Association Accuses Healthcare Institutions of Hiding Payments to Directors' Union

From Gazeta Wyborcza · (1d ago) Polish Critical tone

Translated from Polish, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

TLDR

  • The Croatian Association of Hospital Doctors (HUBOL) is criticizing the lack of transparency from healthcare institutions regarding payments to the Association of Employers in Healthcare (UPUZ).
  • HUBOL has requested financial data from 170 healthcare institutions since February, but many directors are refusing to disclose how much money has been paid to UPUZ over the past five years.
  • HUBOL argues that UPUZ, an interest group for hospital directors, is funded by public money that could be better utilized, and that institutions are using legal loopholes to hide data.

The Croatian Association of Hospital Doctors (HUBOL) has sounded the alarm over what it describes as a systematic violation of transparency by certain healthcare institutions. At the heart of the issue is the refusal by directors of these facilities to disclose the amounts paid to the Association of Employers in Healthcare (UPUZ) over the last five years. HUBOL has been seeking this information since February, requesting data from 170 healthcare institutions, but has met significant resistance.

UPUZ is an association of healthcare institutions, and in essence an interest group of their directors, which claims to provide legal and economic support to its members, although public institutions already have their own legal and accounting services for these matters, and many also engage law firms.

— HUBOLDescribing the nature and function of UPUZ.

HUBOL contends that UPUZ, despite claiming to offer legal and economic support, functions primarily as an interest group for its director members. This raises serious questions about the justification for public institutions, which already possess their own legal and accounting departments, to pay membership fees to such an organization. The association highlights that hundreds of thousands of euros in public funds are potentially being diverted to UPUZ, with a significant number of institutions employing legal tactics to withhold precise figures.

The idea that public institutions pay membership in a private interest group to facilitate contact between directors and the authorities that appointed them can hardly be justified as a rational priority in spending public funds.

— HUBOLQuestioning the rationale behind public institutions paying membership fees to UPUZ.

What is particularly concerning, according to HUBOL, is the identical wording used by several institutions when refusing information requests, suggesting a coordinated effort to obstruct transparency. The association points to specific hospitals and health centers that have stonewalled these inquiries. HUBOL emphasizes that public funds, generated through the work of employees paid by public money and the use of public infrastructure, are not the private property of directors and should be subject to public scrutiny. The group dismisses claims that the information is readily available online, labeling it a "transparent manipulation" as historical financial data is not publicly accessible in the required detail.

Hundreds of thousands of euros of public money paid to UPUZ, a dozen institutions are using legal acrobatics to hide exact data from the public.

— HUBOLHighlighting the scale of funds involved and the methods used to conceal information.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Gazeta Wyborcza in Polish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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