Belarusian Doctor In Poland: In A Month I Can Earn As Much As In Belarus In A Year

Medics told why they moved from Belarus to the EU.

Low wages, workload, limited opportunities, working hours - what else displeases specialists in healthcare? Belarusian doctors told why they moved from Belarus to the EU. "Salidarnasts" has collected some characteristic points.

According to various estimates, about 3,000 Belarusian medics, including doctors and middle staff, are now working in Poland. Only from 2021 to 2022, about a thousand doctors from Belarus moved there.

They start working below their qualifications. And only after confirming their diplomas and passing all the necessary examinations, they receive permission to practice as full-fledged doctors.

The differences between working in the two countries, as well as how life has changed after the move, Belarusian specialists told their Polish colleague on the MPS channel.

And here's what they said.

"A 95-year-old man comes, and you treat him, and how much was spent on it, I as a doctor am not interested"

-"I graduated from university in 2018, and I was assigned to a remote village," recalls the therapist. - It was 40 km to the nearest district center, where you could buy in the store.

In addition to the fact that it was hard to work, I was a little discouraged by the salary. I wanted more, but there was no opportunity to work part-time. It turned out that you just sit in the village and degrade, doing the same thing day after day.

I had enough for a year and a half. I left the village and paid for my diploma, thanks to "covid" money. I got a job in the emergency room of the district hospital, where I was given a part-time job.

Paid tears, the salary was enough to pay utilities, food and pay the phone. In other words, all the money went just for living expenses.

My wife and I looked for everything in the stores on shares, we didn't go anywhere on vacation, we didn't have a car - we just couldn't afford anything.

In Poland, the first months we worked as opiekun medyczny (medical auxiliary personnel - S.). From my first paycheck as an opiekun, I was able to give away all the debts that had accumulated over several months while we stayed at home before going to work. It was some colossal money for us back then.

Since then, I have already started working as a doctor. In the three years I have been working, my salary has increased about 5 times. When I needed money, I took a lot of duty, I could work 300 hours, even more than 400. Those were the times, it was necessary. Now, of course, I work less. But the salary is also increasing.

Roughly speaking, now in a month I can earn as much as in Belarus in a year. Over the last year and a half, my wife and I bought a car and an apartment.

Four times we have been on vacation abroad - in Greece, Spain, Slovakia, Czech Republic, we go to the mountains. We have a higher standard of living here and as you have extra money, new opportunities open up.

I haven't looked at price tags for a year now, I don't look for goods on promotions. Now I look at the number of useful substances and choose the best.

When it comes to working as a therapist in a hospital department, here the doctor has access to any drug. First you look for a drug in the hospital pharmacy, if it is not available, you turn to oddziałowa (head nurse - S.), and she orders it.

For example, one grandmother recently had a severe case, and for treatment I found literally three drugs, and two in the U.S. and only one in Poland. It was ordered and delivered the very next day. And we treated this woman with this drug.

Her treatment cost 40000 zlotys (9.5 thousand euros). But you do what you have to do, and no one tells you that it is too expensive, not cost-effective, they say, it's an old person anyway.

A 95-year-old man comes in and you treat him, and how much was spent on it is not interesting to me as a doctor. This is the opinion of the hospital director.

"Are you saying that in Belarus an anesthesiologist with 20 years of experience lived with a credit card because his salary was not enough?"

- The hospital in our city has a new operating unit, - says the anesthesiologist with more than 25 years of experience, the last 20 years he worked in a large Belarusian district center.

In Poland, the doctor is working for the third year in the hospital of a city with a population of 11 thousand. At the time of the interview, he had not yet passed the exam to confirm his diploma. He says that his average salary with 5-6 duties is 3-4 thousand euros.

- I have seen hospitals in Belarusian small towns, even worked there myself. If you compare resuscitation centers, it is heaven and earth.

For example, there are ventilators near practically every bed here, also in the therapy and surgery departments, if, for example, there are not enough. Almost everything is available for monitoring.

There is an "artificial kidney" (hemodialysis machine). And this apparatus is available in every intensive care unit here. In Belarus I worked in a city with a population of more than 200 thousand, and hemodialysis appeared only a couple of years before I left.

There are quite a lot of consumables, they never run out. I was surprised that even metal consumables, there, clamps, scissors, something else, which we used in Belarus as reusable, here are disposable.

Each one is packed in a bag, used and thrown out just in the trash. In Belarus we sanitized it.

There are prospects to have a good quality of life with a normal income. In Belarus, I remember we lived on this kind of installment card called Halva. It's when you borrow money on it, and then the amount is deducted on payday.

- I'm sorry, are you saying that in Belarus an anesthesiologist with 20 years of experience lived with a credit card because your salary was not enough for you? -

- Yes, plus there were other loans. We took a loan for apartment renovation, for some household appliances, and it turned out that our salary was not enough. That's why we got an installment card.

Only during the period of covida I earned a little bit and bought a car, not from a salon, but not old, made repairs in the apartment.

And here you get your salary - and you still have money on your card. You can even put aside some money.

We now have gastronomic interests, we like to go to restaurants, try different dishes, we like to cook something ourselves, as in cooking blogs, with exotic products. Periodically we started to go somewhere.

"It's cool, but where there is capitalism, people count money, no one will send a doctor to a sick child at home"

- I didn't see any special differences in the work at first, so I said that I moved from one CRB to another, only in Poland, - says the pediatrician, who moved from the Belarusian regional center to a city with a population of 20 thousand people. - However, there are still differences.

In terms of diagnostics, the range here is wider. When a child arrives, I can immediately do more tests, in principle, I can do any kind of tests. For example, the same thyroid hormones in Belarus had to wait 7-10 days, here 2-3 hours.

In the department we have an average of 5-7 people, but in the off-season there may not be a single patient. Two pediatricians work full time, there is a head, a doctor who does not work full time, and a doctor who comes to us on duty.

In Belarus I was a district pediatrician in the Central Regional Hospital. I had beds in the hospital, first 10, then reduced to five. But it also depended on the season, there could be more or less children.

Plus I worked as a district doctor, and I was on duty in the district, where there were 2 thousand children. There was a lot of paperwork. I don't know how it is now, but when I was working, we wrote a lot by hand, then glued it all.

There we mostly print everything on the computer: case histories, diaries. The only thing is that we handwrite appointments and, if somewhere it is necessary to sign. For a year I have not written off pens.

Additionally, on average, I take 5-6 duties. I like the fact that there is a very good premium for them. It can be almost a whole salary, depending on how much you want to work.

There you can also, as in Belarus, stay in the hospital for a day and a half or two days, but you know how much you will get for it. On weekends, for example, the pay is double.

Polish doctor-specialist for 48 hours on weekends can earn 10000 zlotys (2400 euros). As a doctor with an unconfirmed diploma, my rates are not like that yet. I've been working for a little over a year and so far I get 3500 euros per hand.

- A pediatrician in the Belarusian polyclinic usually has a two-shift schedule, - shares another pediatrician who moved from Minsk. - You work in the first or second shift.

If in the first, you have three hours for reception, when there can be a very different number of people - from 20 to 60. Sometimes it's 5 minutes per patient, during which you have to fill out a history, examine, talk, prescribe treatment, reassure moms, grandmas, dads.

After the appointment, you run to home visits. I was lucky with my district - I was not called very much, there were never more than 20 calls a day.

- Are you saying that a pediatrician in Belarus can go to 20 different houses to 20 different people for consultation? - was surprised by his Polish colleague. - This is a very good health care service.

That in Poland someone would go to someone's house and check on his child! There is a nurse who is obliged to come three times, but definitely not a doctor. It must be very, very expensive for the country. And I think that Poland lacks this kind of dispensary.

- But calling a doctor is when you go to a sick child, and the dispensary is another part of your job. And after you've passed those twenty houses, you go back to the office, because you have to fill out paper cards of all the children examined.

- I understand now why you moved to Poland, - concluded the Polish doctor. - If our pediatricians were forced to work in this format, no one would work. It's a very good service for the patient, because parents, even those who don't have money, can expect a doctor to come.

It's cool, but where capitalism is, people count money, no one will send a doctor to a sick child at home, because it's more to appease the parents than to help that child. We can only provide a little help at home.

"At any moment you can finish an X-ray, ultrasound, tomography, if necessary. And nobody will scold you for it"

-"I get net 4-5 thousand dollars, I earn more, but I have higher taxes," says a general practitioner, who in Belarus worked in a hospital, and then in an ambulance.

In Poland, he has been working for two years at the SOR (emergency department in the hospital, reminiscent of the emergency room in Belarus).

- If I had a family, part of the taxes would be returned to me. But even with this income with all the expenses for a year I can really put aside, let's say, the amount of 50 thousand dollars.

It should be understood that the emergency room is one of the most difficult departments - both for specialists and for doctors without specialization. But it is also favorable in terms of practice, because the work in this department is one of the most intensive. There are ambulances here all the time, one after another, and you work all day long.

- On SOR you always know what to do with a patient. The big plus is that there is good diagnostics. This is something that was very much lacking in Belarus," shares another general practitioner who has been working for 3 years on SOR in a hospital of a city with a population of 100 thousand. - That is, you know that at any moment you can finish X-ray, ultrasound, tomography, if necessary. And no one will scold you for it.

And in terms of treatment, SOR also has everything to stabilize, save, treat the patient. Any blood test can be done. The result is ready from one to 15 minutes. If we are talking about morphology, it is 20-30 minutes, biochemistry, general urine analysis - maximum one hour.

In Belarus, in the emergency room, many things were not prescribed because there were no reagents. Some of the tests that we do here, in Belarus were done only in the intensive care unit.

Morphology, for example, with platelets, we waited 60-70 minutes, that is, more than an hour. Urine analysis was ready a little faster, but usually we waited for an hour too.

The only things we could do in the emergency room were blood morphology, general urine analysis and something on biochemistry, but not everything.

I think I have a good salary now, on average 24-27000 PLN "clean". That's 7 thousand dollars a month, sometimes more, sometimes less. I have ten duties per month now.

When I become a specialized doctor, my salary will increase. Doctors with specialization in SOR in Poland earn about 75000 PLN (more than 20 thousand dollars), a resident doctor gets 100000 PLN (about 27 thousand dollars).

"When we first flew to Greece, we looked around and could not believe that we really earned it"

All doctors emphasize that work in another country is not easier and its not less. Especially in the first time, to earn money, doctors take a large number of duties, because they are well paid.

Many note that in Polish clinics one has to take much more responsibility. Besides, all Belarusian specialists face language difficulties, prepare for and pass difficult exams. Everyone will have to adapt to a new place and a new team.

- I am used to living in Minsk, but here I came to a city with a population of 540 thousand. But I immediately realized that I would be fine and so would my children," says the radiologist who worked in the RNPC. - The fact is that in Poland you can live anywhere.

There is no such thing as all the population striving for the capital, as in our country. Our city has everything, the most modern fairs take place. There is a beautiful Old Town, which I loved very much, I missed it in Minsk.

I know that in Poland in some places radiologists on duty receive 500 zlotys (120 euros) per hour. My rates are quite different, but it is still impossible to compare them with the Belarusian salary.

I get 160 zlotys (about 40 euros) per hour, not much, because so far I am something between a resident and a specialist. Specialists mostly get 220 zlotys (more than 50 euros).

But even with my rate, when I have a lot of duty hours, just for them I get more than my entire salary in Belarus.

- I heard that in Poland, specialist doctors buy a house in a year," says another radiologist from the RNPC with more than 25 years of experience, who has been working for a year and a half in a city with a population of 170,000. - During more than 20 years of work in Belarus, I had no opportunity to buy an apartment, we lived in social housing.

I worked almost two jobs, but I could not save up for even the cheapest saloon car. It was an unattainable thing. Our entire salary was spent on utilities, clothes and food.

We started to buy more expensive food only when my son started to earn money. For example, then I tried shrimp for the first time.

In Poland, from the first minimum wage I was able to afford to rent an apartment. Of course, I still had enough to live on, without luxuries, but nevertheless.

- To meet relatives from Belarus, we helped to pay for their trips to the sea, where we vacationed together, - shared the therapist, who moved to Poland with her husband, also a doctor. - In general, over the past two years, we have already gone on vacation to different countries several times.

We have never gone to Belarus, and dreamed only of Odessa. When the first time we flew to Greece, we looked around and could not believe that we really earned it.

After vacationing in the Canary Islands, there sand, desert and ocean - the combination is amazing. Skiing in Slovakia.

It was all hard to even realize, not that to live so really. To be allowed to eat what you want, to buy clothes in brand stores, not in second hand stores.

- What I like most here is that you are constantly improving," says a traumatologist who worked as a head of department in Belarus.

In Poland, he works as an orthopedist at SOR. After 4 years of emigration he earns almost 80 dollars an hour.

- In Belarus, at some point I realized that you can "sour", sit in some place and that's it. Here it is impossible. You simply cannot work if you do not develop.

For example, I can now get in a car and go to any European city for a conference. I pay a small fee and participate. That's what Polish doctors I know do, they are constantly developing. And I will also start doing so, as soon as I finish with all the exams.

"Here I have no duty, I do not come to work on weekends, I do not answer the phone"

- In Poland, from what I have seen, there are two ways to get consultative assistance of a neurosurgeon, - says a neurosurgeon of one of the Belarusian RNPCs, who has been working after the move for a year and a half. - You can make an appointment with a state doctor, in our understanding for free.

The appointment for such a consultation specifically in our hospital, as patients said, from 8 to 12 months. Sometimes you can get in earlier, if a place becomes available.

And there are consultations for a fee. All neurosurgeons from szpitali (hospitals), who want to, have private offices. You can get to them faster, 1-3 months in advance.

The patient himself chooses whether to go by public insurance or to a private appointment. He also has the right to choose the institution where he wants to operate and, in fact, he chooses his own surgeon.

The hospital itself will give the doctor the capabilities, implants, technical tools that he asks for a particular patient.

Suppose you need implants from a certain company, the head of the department himself contacts the company that supplies them directly, makes an order, and everything comes. There are no problems with this, at least in our hospital.

If necessary, a representative from the company will come with kits, you just point your finger at what you want. If you need training or refresh your knowledge of how to work with this equipment, all companies organize express courses for a day or two. And I have traveled to such courses. They are held on the basis of clinics or other institutions.

They provide you with all the information, practical application, and then again you order what you need.

In Belarus, I personally, and doctors in general, did not order anything from the RNPC. These are two different supply systems, it is impossible to even compare them. I will not describe the exact scheme of equipment supply in Belarus, as we did not have access to it.

There is a certain category of doctors who participate in equipment procurement. Everyone else works with what we have, what is supplied to us. Personally, I did not have the opportunity to choose something myself, it was not my level, I would say so.

A half-hour consultation with a neurosurgeon here costs from 250 PLN (60 euros) in small towns to 500 PLN (120 euros) in large cities.

For most doctors in Belarus, work comes first. It is the most important, and family life is kind of secondary. This situation is forced. It is a choice that we do not make ourselves, it is made for us.

We have no other option, because if you put private, family life in the first place and do not pick up the phone all weekend or do not go to work on a holiday on a call, you will not be understood. Plus, again, no one canceled financial issues.

Here I have no duty, I do not come to work on weekends, do not answer the phone. Moreover, no one here will call in the evening after the working day, because everyone respects privacy.

And without duty, I earn here many times more than in Belarus. That's why my family and my private life finally come first.

"It's funny, but I bought five pairs of shoes at once"

- In Belarus, my career went horizontally, I was a doctor, I was the head of the therapeutic department. I did not want to become a chief medical officer, much less a chief physician. It is an administrator who only gets more responsibility, even in financial terms it gives almost nothing, - said the therapist with 20 years of experience, who works in Poland for the second year.

- Here I became an ordinary doctor and, even taking into account my age and experience, I am interested. I want to pass my exams. I see the future, I see what I will have ahead of me, including what my professional growth can be.

The work itself is very different. In Belarus we are always limited in medicines, we can prescribe only Belarusian medicines or what is authorized.

Some original medicines can be prescribed almost through a consilium, with three signatures. Here you have as many original modern drugs as you want.

We do not think about what to prescribe and how much it costs. Almost everything is available in the department without restrictions.

Even in our small town we have our own CT scanner. There is no permanent doctor who makes a description, but he comes to us, we have a contract with him.

I can also note the different attitude of patients to doctors. In Belarus, many people really consider doctors to be service personnel. The attitude is that you have to, you took the Hippocratic Oath, you are paid for it. I have not met such an attitude here yet.

- I had a very heavy workload in Belarus, I worked for two hospitals, in one - in the emergency room, - says the therapist, who moved from Minsk to a Polish city with a population of 15 thousand and works there in the hospital in the therapy department. - After a day in Minsk I couldn't go to bed, I would get behind the wheel and drive with my child to the pool, to some classes.

On my only day off I had to solve all the accumulated problems at home, with the car, etc. I was tired of working so much and at one point I realized that there was no sense in this work, that I was not developing in medicine.

There was just some crisis, I wanted to leave, maybe in cosmetology, or somewhere else, but not to stay in medicine. And the salary was small, so there was no point. I started looking for other options and decided to move.

I am surprised that in Poland there is life in small towns too. In Belarus, a town of up to 15 thousand is a village, there is nothing there, to find something, you have to go to a big city.

There is everything: an aquapark, gym, swimming pool, even a castle, you can go to restaurants, there is a McDonald's in this tiny town. Transportation is good. And not far away is a city of 170 thousand people, where there is a lot of everything.

The big difference is the attitude of patients. In Belarus, there are a lot of complaints, and this is very depressing for doctors, it hurts their self-esteem and professionalism.

You save some heavy patient, and then a person comes with his own feet, let's say, with a cough, and complains that he waited 40 minutes, and writes a complaint against you.

And you have to write a paper and justify yourself, even though you don't understand why, what you are guilty of. And here you are respected, here you are Pani lekarz. This is a big difference.

Even the other day a patient with blood pressure came to the reception, I stand up, and he stood up. I said, "Sit-sit-sit" and he said, "No, you are standing, how can I sit?". Such an attitude.

Or, for example, people leave the reception center, whom I have examined, made them different conclusions, fully explained everything. I used to work like this in Minsk, to explain to every patient what drugs to take, how to take them.

And here you do the usual work, like you did in Belarus, but you get so much gratitude for it from people. And it is very pleasant.

I wanted to stay in medicine. That's where I said: "I just want to leave, let me go", but here I want to be a doctor, I want to help.

I was pleasantly surprised about the sick leave. There is a big difference in that too. In the winter, the child was sick three times in a row, probably a month apart. And we went on sick leave three times.

I was released without questions, without complaints, everyone understands that I am a single mother. There was no such thing as in Belarus, when I was afraid to go on sick leave, because it meant that I would let down another doctor, there was simply no one to take my place.

And that was a problem, I practically never went on sick leave, and here I was paid normally (80% of my salary), I did not feel a big difference.

As for the salary, so far I do not take duty. But I confess that I love to go shopping. And here I took my soul, because I go shopping calmly and I know that there is money in the account, that I have enough.

And I pay for housing, not for my own, but for rent, and for groceries, and for school, dress and shoes - everything is enough. It's funny, but I bought five pairs of shoes at once. Because we moved with only two suitcases, there were not enough things.

And I still had so much money left that I did not have to think whether I had enough or not until payday.

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