Health Minister: we will put the health care system from head to toe

A bill to make emergency contraception available again without a prescription has already been approved by the government. Both Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Minister Izabela Leszczyna hope that the bill will be processed smoothly and signed by the president. The issue of abortion remains unresolved. There is no consensus within the ruling coalition to implement the project of free abortion until the 12th week of pregnancy. However, Minister Izabela Leszczyna announced in an interview that guidelines for doctors on terminating pregnancies will be announced by the end of the month.

- What is important to me in these guidelines is that there is no conscience clause for the medical entity, i.e. the hospital, and no doctor can hide behind the conscience clause if the life or health of a pregnant woman is at risk. These are fundamental things for me, and we will not deviate from this," declared Izabela Leszczyna.

However, a regulation on broader access to prenatal testing is almost ready.

- At the beginning of next week, I will also talk to the national consultant for anesthesiology about the problem of perinatal anesthesia. We will look and I'm sure we will find a way to make this procedure more widely available. We will certainly price it better and there will also be a list of delivery rooms that will provide women with such access," said Izabela Leszczyna.

Work on the digitization of the health care system is also on the list of priority tasks to be completed, she added.

- The previous government boasted a lot about e-prescription or e-recall. The problem as I see it is this: we have a lot of different IT systems that do not see each other, they are not compatible," Izabela Leszczyna pointed out.