‘The Case of Radom Doctors’ from 1926–1930 and its consequences

Abstract

Until the 1880s, doctors practiced as a freelance profession – this was understood, inter alia, as the possibility of practicing a profession through private practice in any place where the doctor settled. Then, mainly in Germany and Austria, Sickness Funds were established, which stood between the patient and the doctor as intermediaries. For the patient, this meant the possibility of insurance and security against illness – but for doctors it quickly became an economic dictate. This phenomenon also appeared in free Poland, when Sickness Funds began to be established. Doctors tried to raise the issues of professional solidarity, ethics and community of interests, thus defending themselves against the monopoly of SicknessFunds. Unfortunately, in many places professional solidarity was broken, and the mainly politically motivated scabs took up employment. The case of the doctors in Radom was one of such legal cases, just like the doctors from Inowrocław and Łuck, and exerted an effect on the proceedings of the Courts and Medical Chambers. Noteworthy is the conduct of the administrative authorities, in this case the Ministries of the Interior, which arbitrarily assigned themselves a superior role over the professional self-government of doctors. Also today, the National Health Fund has become an organ with a disproportionately greater influence on shaping health policy than Medical Chambers, which have been reserved for an opinion-forming role, but without the binding nature of these opinions.

Keywords

• history of medicine
• sickness fund
• medical chambers