Welcome, everyone, to another meeting of the government. For this day, for this moment, Poles have been waiting—certainly the patients, and surely most doctors as well—with the hope that we will quickly and effectively fix the health system, especially where abuses were taking place and irregularities.
You remember that in recent weeks the debate was of a national nature: how much should doctors earn, how long should they work, and is a system possible where money won't leak or be wasted? The lesson from this is clear. Firstly, people expect rapid changes. I thank the Minister of Health. We talked at length about how to prepare bills and regulations very carefully, but at the same time not to wait with them and to introduce changes as quickly as possible, especially those that are quite obvious and indisputable.
And that is why today we will have five legislative bills to decide upon. Some regulations have already been prepared in advance. Their goal is precisely to limit to a minimum, or ideally reduce to zero, all these areas of abuse. Our knowledge, and I think you all agree with this, is that Poles believe, and rightly so, that doctors should earn well. Poles want access to the best and fastest medical services possible.
And Poles, in the overwhelming majority—including the doctors with whom we are constantly talking—the overwhelming majority of doctors also want a system where no one will suspect the medical community of abusing power, abusing money, and using funds meant for treatment solely for salaries. And that is why the most important changes we are proposing are those that will make it impossible in the near future to exploit the National Health Fund system for unjustified earnings regarding the amount and workload.
This has already been going through the media. I don't want to shock anyone here, but I want the matter to be as clear and obvious as possible. We also believe, like the patients, that being a doctor is a profession of the highest trust, very demanding, and people there should earn well. But we must put an end to the methods that have built such a small group of so-called millionaires—and there is no exaggeration in that—who use various loopholes in the system, because opportunity also causes these abuses, and they have ultimately reached a size that is absolutely unacceptable.
An orthopedist. No, no, no, I don't want to mention names here. An orthopedist in Grójec, 3 million 200,000 for the year. A record-breaking hospital for earnings, 115% of all funds that this hospital received from the NFZ. 115% went, so 100% plus 15% into debt, just on salaries. A hospital also needs medicines, electricity, food.
Well, I don't have to explain to anyone what this type of irregularity has led to. They also relied on the fact that some people worked in a completely unbelievable way in terms of working hours, and received payment for it. The record holder, a doctor from Braniewo, worked, according to the data received by the National Health Fund, 72 hours a day. 72 hours a day, and was paid for it.
That is why we made the decision in the draft laws to limit these chimneys, to set an upper cap, and it is certainly not particularly painful for all those who honestly want to work in the system we have in Poland. And to put it briefly—and we are talking all the time about public funds from the NFZ, we are not touching here what a doctor earns from a private practice, private consultations, etc.—a doctor will be able to work at most on two full-time positions, and then that maximum annual salary will certainly not exceed one million; it will be around 900,000 PLN per year, which is a bit over 70,000 PLN per month.
That is the upper cap. We are talking about doctors who work two full-time jobs, and this is not only a decent salary, it will still be one of the highest salaries in Europe, so let no one have any doubts. No one is being harmed here. And when we talk about two full-time positions, it also means doing away with this system where someone could work 72 hours a day. The Minister of Health will provide details at the press conference of Minister Szłapka right after the government meeting. There are, of course, many more details here.
We have been asked in recent days about the pace of introducing these laws. I hope the law will enter into force as soon as possible. Meaning it will be sent to the Sejm today. Well, of course, there is always that last question, about the president's signature, but the moment the act comes into force, it will come into force one month after it is passed, one month, and new contracts will already be under the requirements of the new law.
Old contracts that are not expiring right now will require a lot of work from the units. I mean, this is a serious, serious effort. But the Minister and I decided to shorten the preparation time for all units for this new system in this draft, and it won't be 12 months, but a maximum of 6 months in cases where it will be necessary to model, verify, terminate old contracts, and implement new contracts, agreements, etc. This is a complicated process.
And regardless of the fact that some would like it later, we know who, and some earlier, we feel responsible not only for a quick and efficient passage of this law, but we also want to avoid any perturbations or mess in hospitals, and therefore it seems that this is a very demanding, but very reasonable and responsible deadline. So today we have these projects ready, and we will work very diligently in the Sejm and the Senate. We are counting on the president's quick signature, and a month later the law will be in effect.
Also for health, we want to return to the issue of excise tax, a higher excise tax on alcohol. As you may remember, we tried, but we received a presidential veto on the alcohol excise tax hike. The president explained then that he would not allow an alcohol excise tax hike just so the budget would have more money. Okay. We are proposing a bill that explicitly states the revenue will be 1.4 billion zlotys, and that 100% of this, of that money, will go toward health. Not for other expenses, but specifically for health. That, in fact, was always our intention.
Mr. President, I hope my voice reaches the United States. Please do not give in to any lobbying on this matter. We know who is interested in preventing this increase. Yes, even if someone comes and offers 200,000 dollars for a meeting, please do not listen to them and please sign something that will benefit patients, the health system, and ultimately be for everyone's health. So Mr. President, I remind you once again, this money is for health. That is all for the public part of our meeting. Yeah.
