"Of the 302 doctors who wanted to issue prescriptions over the limit, nearly 100 percent were entities that conduct prescription business over the Internet, not PCPs. Please don't mislead people, because this is about their health. Is the Supreme Medical Chamber acting in the interest of prescribers? The empire is counterattacking," reads a Twitter post published Thursday by the head of the Health Ministry.
The Chamber did not have to wait long for a response:
"Minister, almost all does not mean all. Imposing an unsupported legal limit based on 'logic' will not solve the problem of prescribers. The self-government evaluates their activities negatively, but your proposed solution also hits the reliably working doctors," NIL wrote on Twitter.
A day earlier, Lukasz Jankowski, president of the doctors' self-government, sent a letter to the Health Minister, indicating that the environment strongly protests the restriction of patients' rights to healthcare services and the arbitrary determination of how a doctor can use tools such as e-prescription to provide assistance to the sick. NIL demands that the ministry immediately withdraw from the introduction of limits on prescriptions and develop systemic solutions in consultation with the medical community.
Doctors' doubts are already raised by the very mode of implementation of the changes. As NIL spokesman Jakub Kosikowski pointed out in an interview with Medexpress, doctors were surprised by the setting of limits in the prescription platform, which was not supported by any official act on the matter.
At the root of the dispute that has been brewing in the public space between the minister and doctors in recent days is the activity of so-called prescribers, i.e. Internet portals through which one can obtain a prescription for any drug in a few minutes. The Minister of Health has already announced measures to curb the practice for several months. At a press conference last week, he announced that a doctor will be able to issue a maximum of 300 prescriptions for 80 patients during 10 hours of work. Shortly after the weekend, the limits were implemented, and as a result, doctors who, for example, encountered a blockage in issuing the 301st prescription while on duty at a second place of work, began reporting to NIL.
