Hospital “selling” employees for machines? Wrocław University of Science and Technology goes into outsourcing, staff warns: “We are not robots!”
The Wrocław University Clinical Hospital on Borowska Street – one of the largest in Poland – is preparing radical changes. The orderlies, stretcher-bearers and drivers are to be taken over by an external company. The hospital talks about efficiency. The employees – about the lack of respect and fear for the future. Can patient care be built on outsourcing?
The USK authorities plan to outsource tasks such as cleaning, internal transport, and patient care. Until now, these have been performed by full-time staff. Although they have been assured that no one will lose their job and that employment conditions will not deteriorate, employees do not hide their concerns.
– We felt like merchandise . No one asked us what we thought about it. We were told to be happy that they were even informing us – says one of the orderlies. – The hospital authorities explain it by investing in “super machines”. But why can’t we get them ourselves?
Outsourcing often means savings for the facility. But in a hospital, where patient safety depends on the cooperation of the entire team, such changes can have much more far-reaching consequences.
"A nurse is not just a cleaning person. She is someone who knows the ward, the patients, the procedures. We work hand in hand with nurses and doctors. Replacing us with someone from outside, with minimal training, could have an impact on the patients," warns another employee.
The hospital reassures: the scope of duties will change, but no one will lose their job. According to employee reports, however, specific announcements have been made: orderlies are to become cleaners, without the right to perform patient-related activities , such as making beds. Their current duties would fall to medical caregivers and nurses.
The staff feel that the decision was made without consultation. A meeting with management, which was supposed to dispel doubts, only inflamed the situation.
– It was a brawl. They said that outsourcing was modern and that machines would be better than people. The younger stretcher-bearer said directly that they had sold us for equipment – recounts one of the participants.
On a daily basis, these people – invisible in the structure – bear the real burden of running the wards. On weekends, one orderly cleans a dozen or so wards and bathrooms, distributes meals, cleans up after them, and manages two treatment rooms.
– And now someone claims that we can be “optimized”? – they ask bitterly.
Tomasz Król, spokesman for the USK , argues that outsourcing will allow for focusing on treatment, especially in key areas such as oncology and hematology.
– Modern companies have the equipment and experience that will translate into better quality of support services – he says.
According to him, similar solutions are in place in other modern hospitals and are working well. However, he did not say how many employees would be affected by the change. It is known that the ward on Borowska Street alone has over 1,500 beds.
It's not just about the contract or the scope of duties. Employees emphasize that the biggest problem is the lack of respect . They feel left out, pushed to the sidelines, as if they were an obstacle on the way to "efficiency."
– No one asked us, no one listened to us. They want to take us out through the technical door, without saying goodbye – they say.
Outsourcing of support services is a well-known phenomenon – and sometimes effective. But a hospital is not a factory . A machine will not replace a person who lifts a patient out of bed, listens, notices disturbing symptoms, helps without words.
If changes in support staff impact the already overburdened nursing team, it will be the patient who pays the highest price.
Source: msn.pl Update: 08/07/2025 06:30
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