The Guardian 21-07-06

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Created on Friday, 21 July 2006 10:13

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G2: Why would you leave a place like this?: The moment Poland joined the EU, itscitizens rushed for the exits. Five thousand doctors alone have left since2004. But what's so bad about the old country, or so great about destinations like Britain? Helen Pidd and Luke Harding report from beautiful, cultured - but unloved - Wroclaw

Helen Pidd and Luke Harding

21 July 2006

The Guardian

©Copyright 2006. The Guardian. All rights reserved.

At bay number four in Wroclaw's bus station, a group of young Poles are standingaround in the afternoon sunshine. Among them is Michal Wardas, a 24-year-old university student. He is off to spend the next two months working as a waiteron the Isle of Wight. "I like Britain. The people are friendly. I've beenfour times in the past two years," Wardas says, dumping his rucksack onthe 51-seater Globus coach, and climbing on board for the 20-hour journey toLondon.

The trip will take him through the drab motorway landscape of central Europe - downGermany's autobahns, through Holland and the town of Eindhoven, and intoBritain via Calais and the Channel tunnel. There will be lots of free coffee,and videos of Polish comedies and Mr Bean - not a bad introduction to life inBritain, perhaps, for Poles not fluent in English. Wardas's mum, Teresa, hascome to wave him off. "I'm very sad he's leaving," she says. "When I grew up you couldn't visit the west. The only place we could gowas the Soviet Union. But this is a different generation."

What makes this scene in Wroclaw, in south-west Poland, unusual is the epic scale ofthe exodus. On quiet days six buses leave for "Anglia", the Polish word for England; when it's busy, it is 15. The buses are all full; you have tobook. With Ryanair flying twice a day between Wroclaw and Stansted as well, aquick back-of-an-envelope calculation reveals that around 1,000 Wroclavians aday are heading to London, Liverpool, Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent and other UKdestinations. Nobody knows how many Poles go back home. But given that the Ryanair fare from Wroclaw to London often costs three times as much as flying in the other direction, it is clear that most of the traffic is heading oneway.

Wardas is part of the biggest wave of emigration into Britain for three centuries.Official statistics suggest that 228,000 Poles have registered to live and workin Britain since Poland joined the EU in May 2004. Other estimates suggest thereal figure is between 350,000 and 500,000, while last week the respectedPolish news magazine Polityka estimated that one million Poles have moved tothe UK. Some 83% of them are under 34. This benign invasion of eager andbiddable young Poles has, it is generally agreed, been marvellous for theBritish economy and anyone who had previously struggled to find a cheap plumber.

But what has the impact been on Poland, where 16.5% of inhabitants are unemployedand the average national wage is just pounds 5,226 per year? Some two years on,there is a growing realisation that the "brain drain" now grippingeastern Europe's biggest country is nothing less than a national disaster. "In my neighbourhood near Warsaw some 25 businesses have closeddown," noted Krystyna Iglicka, an expert on demography at Warsaw's Centrefor International Relations, this week. "The boy who delivered my pizzahas disappeared. My hairdresser has gone. The gardener who used to do my gardennow works in Great Britain for a landscape architect. A friend of mine tookhim. My local garage has shut down. Everyone has moved to Britain or to Ireland."

InWroclaw, Poland's fourth largest city with 675,000 inhabitants, officials areseriously worried. With its Gothic churches, baroque university and languidwillow-lined canals, this historic town on the banks of the Odra river couldhardly be more enticing. Germany is a few hours' drive away, the Czech Republic and Sudety mountains are nearby. Formerly ruled by the Austrians, Bohemians andthe Germans - who left in 1945 - it is probably Poland's most European city. Atnight tipsy students stagger arm in arm down the restored medieval streets;swallows circle the cathedral's twin towers; you can even see the odd nunsending an SMS.

But the problem, as the city's ambitious mayor, Rafal Dutkiewicz, explains, is that much of Wroclaw's educated workforce has gone. "It's irritating that nobody has been talking about this issue," he says, speaking from hisoffice overlooking the Rynek, Wroclaw's pretty cobbled market square. "I'm a big fan of a free Europe. I believe people should be allowed to make theirown decisions. At the same time it's my job to try and create an alternative sothat not everybody goes off to Britain."

The mayor is trying to persuade some of the thousands of Poles who have decamped toBritain to come back. The city has launched an advertising campaign in Polishpapers in Britain under the slogan: "Wroc-loves you." It has set upan internet site for homesick Poles (www.terazwroclaw.pl ) and taken out radio advertson Polish radio stations such as Radio Orla in London. It is evensponsoring Polish cultural events - not folk choirs in national costume, butgigs at the 2,000-capacity London Astoria and other major venues. ("Wedidn't want to do anything too formal. We wanted to get across the message thatWroclaw was cool," says Pawel Romaszkan from Wroclaw's tourism office, whowill be touring Britain in September and October, with the message: "Comehome." And since 2001, Polityka has launched another scheme called StayWith Us, sponsored by some of Poland's biggest companies, to persuade thecountry's leading young academics to resist the lure of foreign shores. So far,about 100 rising stars have received around pounds 4,200 to stay put.

Unfortunately, most Poles now in London consider the idea of going back to their homeland anon-starter. "Why on earth would I go back?" says 34-year-old RafalStanczak from Wroclaw, who has been driving vans in Britain for a year."Here I get four times the wages I got in Wroclaw, and it is only twice asexpensive to live."

But it's not just about the money. Ask almost any young Pole in Britain why theyare here, and chances are they will say they fancied an adventure. Unlike previous generations, whose only chance to experience the west was on TV, thislot - just like their contemporaries the world over - are keen to travel."We're living in a free Europe now and I want to see as much of it aspossible," says one Pole in London, Jacek Rudnicki. "I love Wroclaw,"says 28-year-old Jacek Zelaszkiewicz, who is standing in the city's biggestsquare, "but I want to see other cities; big places where I won't bumpinto an ex-girlfriend on every corner."

If Wroclaw is unable to tempt people back, there is little hope that the moredepressed towns in the region - with their communist-era tower blocks andageing population - can do any better. Instead, the dire consequences forPoland are becoming increasingly clear. There are labour shortages in severalsectors of the Polish economy - in services, trade, the building industry andscience. The most acute problem of all, however, is in medicine. Some 5,000doctors have left Poland over the past two years. In Lower Silesia, whereWroclaw is located, a quarter of all anaesthetists have applied for the specialcertificate that allows them to work abroad; nationally the figure is 14% (seeAgnieszka Walecka case study, p9). One hospital in the region recentlysuspended operations because all 10 anaesthetists walked out in protest at lowpay. Poland's underfunded health service is also running out of nurses.

"The situation is drastic. There are too few anaesthetists," says JerzyWyszumirski, vice-president of Poland's anaesthetists' association. "Of course this affects patients. Doctors are over-tired, frustrated and in ahurry. We are now working 70 hours a week. In this situation there are bound tobe mistakes." Has anyone died yet? "No. But to give you ahypothetical example, in an emergency we may now be able to treat only one patient instead of three."

In Poland, an anaesthetist earns as little as 1,200-1,400 zloty a month - pounds200. A top specialist might get 10,000 zloty - pounds 1,600. Such salaries spectacularly fail to compare with the NHS, where anaesthetists earn pounds45,000-pounds 110,000 a year, and have far greater opportunities forprofessional development.

Last year Wyszumirski wrote to Poland's health ministry, pointing out that"embarrassingly low wages" meant that all the best doctors were leaving the country. Last month the ministry wrote back. It said it was"monitoring" the situation and promised higher pay and moreanaesthetists. Poland's eccentric rightwing coalition government - headed bypresident Lech Kaczynski and his prime minister twin brother Jaroslaw - appearsnot to have got to grips with the problem. But even if Poland does manage totrain more doctors, it seems inevitable that many of them will end up in Bristol or Glasgow.

For the moment, then, the lure of higher wages in the UK is irresistible, not justfor middle-class professionals but also for anyone with ambition, prepared to take a low-skilled job and improve their English. According to figures from theHome Office, at least two-thirds of Polish immigrants in Britain take society'slowest paid work. "In England I can earn five times as much as inPoland," says Lukasz Nowak, a 24-year-old student boarding the bus to Anglia. "I've never been in Britain before. But I'm going to stay with afriend. He's promised to find me a job. Apparently it's easy." Can he speak English? "Nie."

Those left behind find the exodus to Britain as irritating as it is understandable."It's our educated young people who are leaving," complains Alicja Zubik, a partner in a successful estate agents in Wroclaw. "The onlyreason is money. The Polish taxpayer paid for their education in the first place." Her most promising young employee was economics graduate KamilaSmakulska (see case study, below right). She set off for London a year ago, andis now working as a waitress.

Zubik admits Smakulska has been hard to replace. She points out that at crucialmoments in Poland's history much of the country's population has cleared off. It happened when Russia, Austria and Prussia partitioned Poland in the 19thcentury, effacing it from the map; there was another wave of mass emigration inthe early 20th century; then the catastrophe of the second world war, andcommunist rule. "Poland has been running to catch up. But we keep on falling into a hole. Our skilled people are always leaving," she says.

What would her message be to Smakulska and other young Poles in Britain? "Iwould say, 'Be happy'. Take the best examples and best practices from abroad.And then come back." But Smakulska doesn't feel guilty for leaving - infact, every Pole we spoke to in London thought that EU membership was a good excuse to desert their country, albeit temporarily: the vast majority say theirsojourn in the UK is not permanent.

The wave of migration to Britain since 2004 has brought some benefits. Last yearPoles working outside their country sent home 22bn zloty - almost pounds 4bn. Economists calculate the money accounted for 1.5% of Poland's economic growthlast year, now running at 5%. The country's chronic unemployment rate is alsoshrinking: there are now 300,000 fewer jobseekers than last year, although thisdoesn't necessarily point to massive job creation, given the number of peoplewho have left the country.

At the same time wages have gone up by 8%. For the first time Polish politicianshave started discussing how to fill labour shortages in Poland itself, withcalls for restrictions to be lifted so that Ukrainians and Belarussians cancome and work. As Poles leave for Britain, workers from even lower-wagecountries move to Poland - a sort of globalisation merry-go-round. And if theexperience of previous migrations is anything to go by, many of the Poles inBritain will come back. Demographers identify two kinds of migrant - the"hamsters" who curl up and stay in their adopted country, and the"storks" who go abroad seasonally but eventually fly home.

"People are leaving," says Rafal Dutkiewicz. "But some will return. When theydo, we want to present Wroclaw as a really nice city for them to live in."

Back at Wroclaw bus station, the latest coach to Anglia is pulling in. The coach'sdriver, Gienek, says he likes Britain but would never consider actually livingthere. "I've travelled all over Europe," he says. "I've been toItaly, France and Germany. I like Britain. But at the end of the day it's nothing special".