It's going to be May - a protest by addiction therapists

Included in the draft Law on Certain Health Professions (draft UD 328 dated 20.01.2022):

- psychotherapy/addiction therapy specialist,
- addiction therapy instructor

Since at least 2008, the addiction therapist community has been pushing for a piece of legislation that will ensure equal professional treatment in health care for this professional group. Included in the National Program for the Prevention and Solving of Alcohol Problems 2011-2015 was the goal of the Minister of Health to create a system of professional development and professional responsibility. Nothing of the sort has occurred.

Since 2015. ZZPLPiU has been taking up the issue and making the therapist community aware of the need for legal professional solutions. In 2020, there was a meeting with the MZZ. We received general and often evasive assurances about ongoing work to change the training of addiction therapists. The issue of professional law was again marginalized by the MZ.

In December 2021, on the occasion of the parliamentary debate on the draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Public Health and Provisions on the Powers of Addiction Therapists, MZ Undersecretary of State Maciej Miłkowski said that the issue of the medical profession of addiction therapists would be completed in the Law on Certain Medical Professions. The draft law was published in the Government Legislation Center in January 2022. Without the inclusion of addiction therapists.

It is extremely regrettable that the institution in charge of addiction treatment in Poland, i.e. the National Center for Addiction Prevention, does not support the inclusion of addiction therapists in the Law on Certain Medical Professions. The ZZPLPiU, as a member of the Team for Reform of the Addiction Treatment System - the chairman of the Team is the director of the KCPU - has voiced the ZZPLPiU's dema...