Inequality in the Distribution of Specialist Doctors: Evidence from Poland

Health systems are very laborious; that’s why human resources are treated as the most important of every health system over the world. Then, the equitable distribution of human resources in health care remains critical in making progress towards the goal of universal health coverage and thus to sustainable development. Thus, the research problem analyzed in this article is whether the distribution of particular group of health human resources such as specialist doctors ensures sustainability. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the equity in the distribution of specialist doctors across regions of Poland between 2012 and 2018. This research is framed within the international scientific literature, documents, and previous studies on distribution of health human resources and the perspective of sustainability. Data of this study was drawn from the Knowledge Database Health and Health Care of Statistic Poland and Polish Statistical Yearbook. The Gini coefficient was calculated based on population size and geographic size, respectively, for the indicators: number of specialist doctors, number of treated patients in specialist hospital wards, and number of specialist outpatient visits. This study has several major findings. The geographical distribution of all types of specialist doctors is less equitable than in case of population distribution. Some uneven consumption of both outpatient visits and inpatient services was found. Also, the analyses of actual consumption of health services provided by these specialists are more uneven in case of outpatient services than inpatient one. Thus, this research provides some implications for policy and practice.