title: Emergency medical service in Poland--current state and a need of reform.
abstract: The article focuses on the question of reorganisation of Emergency Medical Service in Poland. First part of the paper contains a short description of a project of the Integrated Rescue System, which have been included in the National Emergency Medical Service Act enacted by Parliament in 2001. Considering to the fact, that implementation of this reform has been stopped after general elections in autumn 2001, in the second part of the paper some arguments supporting the postulate of urgent realisation of this project are discussed. The arguments refer to five spheres: epidemiological, social, political, legal and economical. The conclusions of the discussion are, that in every of those spheres negative consequences of blocking the reform may be observed. The final conclusion is, that reorganisation of ineffective Emergency Medical Service in Poland is still a challenge, which public authorities have to manage.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy, Faculty of Public Health, Medical University of Silesia, Poland. zpz@slam.katowice.pl
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Krajewski-Siuda
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Romaniuk
mesh_terms: D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D018166:Health Care Reform; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D011044:Poland