Physician, respond to violence!

On September 23, a press conference was held to inaugurate the campaign, conducted on the initiative of the National Center for Addiction Prevention. An element of the campaign is the doctorureagujnaprzemoc.pl portal, which is designed to provide medical professionals with relevant information on the phenomenon of domestic violence and tools that will improve their competence in identifying potential victims among patients who come forward.

- We want to reach out to doctors and sensitize them to the problem of domestic violence. Although doctors have limited time to visit, they should conduct an in-depth interview if domestic violence is suspected. In a safe atmosphere, they can ask the patient about their home situation and offer help," said Boguslawa Bukowska, director of the National Center for Addiction Prevention. Experts stressed that physical violence is the easiest to diagnose, but health care workers should also be sensitive to cases of psychological, sexual and even economic violence. They must also keep in mind that the medical records they compile can always be an important piece of evidence in possible proceedings against perpetrators of violence. - As part of the campaign, doctors and other health care professionals will be provided with up-to-date and professional knowledge about domestic violence, its recognition, consequences, laws, applicable intervention and assistance procedures, including the Blue Card procedure, Director Bukowska announced.

The experts who spoke emphasized that although the number of reports of suspected cases of violence by health care workers has been increasing in recent years (especially after the enactment of the so-called lex Kamilek in 2023, which explicitly required health care workers to report cases of violence against children), there are still too few of them in relation to the scale of the domestic violence phenomenon. - Simply creating a legal framework is usually not enough. Therefore, we are also trying to help in this area by trying to implement the experience of countries that have more experience in this area - in this case, the Portuguese model. Its essence, in addition to supporting with knowledge and experience, is intersectoral cooperation, between health care institutions, government administration, police, social services. Only such cooperation can be effective," argued Dariusz Dziełak, director of the Office of Public Partnership and Innovation at the NFZ.

The Fund's survey of PCPs shows that 30 percent of facilities that responded to the survey invitation (about 2,000 providers) had at least one case of suspected domestic violence during the year (medical providers or staff do not conduct "investigations," they report not cases of domestic violence, but their suspicion). Many providers indicated that they needed guidance, information so that doctors or nurses would be able to identify possible victims of violence.