Law on certain medical professions without speech therapists. There will be an amendment to remove them from regulation

The amendment regarding speech therapists was submitted by the Law and Justice club. A similar amendment was also proposed by all other parliamentary clubs. This is the result of an appeal by the speech therapists' community and the outcome of a meeting with them in the Sejm.

- This is a kind of gesture to the expectations of the environment, although I have the impression that these same environments have been pushing for years for the profession to be regulated in some way," said Mr. Latos.

- We have prepared an extensive legal analysis that justifies the exclusion of speech therapists from this bill. We would especially like to thank the deputies who helped us prepare the arguments for our exclusion from this bill," said in turn the chairwoman of the Polish Association of Speech Therapists, Milena Stasiak.

As a reminder, speech therapists emphasize that the attempt to regulate their profession within the framework of the law under procedure is unfavorable both for speech therapists and for those who use their services. As they point out, the profession is interdisciplinary in nature and its peculiarities require the development of a separate legal act.

Attention was paid to the interdisciplinary nature of the speech therapy profession by members of opposition clubs. Wladyslaw Kosiniak Kamysz of the Polish People's Party said that his club recommends drafting a separate law for this professional group.

- Thank you for this declaration, because it is by all means beneficial for the development of the profession of speech therapists, whom we badly need, especially in the education and early childhood care system. That's where most of them are. This is an independent, non-supportive profession. The independence of this profession requires an individual approach, not one that will cause any restrictions," Mr. Kosiniak-Kamysz noted.

The law's provisions also worry representatives of some of the other regulated professions, including nutritionists.

- This profession is a profession of public trust and deserves its self-government. It is believed that the level of self-government of dietitians corresponds to that of physiotherapists or speech therapists. That's why we are requesting the exclusion of dietitians from this law. We waited 20 years for it, but we waited for a good law. Meanwhile, in light of this legislation, it may come to pass that some dietitians will simply stop practicing," said Mateusz Witkowski, vice president of the Polish Dietitians' Trade Union.

- We don't want to do anything against the speech therapy community. We needed time for discussion and conversation. Certainly, the longer it takes to proceed with regulations, the harder it is to bring them to a common denominator. We also spoke with the nutritionist community, and I think that some of their demands will be included in the proposals for changes to the law," said Deputy Health Minister Piotr Bromber.

As the deputy health minister pointed out, the proposed legislation introduces mechanisms to ensure that only professionals in a given profession have access to practice medicine.

- The proposed regulations will be a guarantee of employment in the system of highly qualified and competent medical personnel, people who professionally and reliably provide health services. Another issue addressed in them is that of a registry of persons authorized to practice the medical profession. Such a central registry will make it possible to verify medical professionals, both by employers and by patients," added Piotr Bromber.

Vice-chairman of the Parliamentary Health Committee, MP Rajmund Miller of the Civic Coalition, proposed referring the bill to work in subcommittees. The proposal was rejected in a vote.