The draft amendment to the Law on the Profession of Nursing and Midwifery, which Deputy Minister Katarzyna Kęcka boasted about in the Health Committee at the last session of the Sejm, has caused not so much a dispute as a massive row in the nursing and midwifery community and - probably - a fierce dispute between the professional self-government and the Health Ministry. It was about changes in midwifery education.
The row over midwives
Published May 19, 2026 19:16
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- The Health Ministry is abolishing the profession of midwifery! - alarmed midwives active on social media since the weekend, after the Supreme Chamber of Nurses and Midwives published a draft amendment inviting comments. At issue is the amendment, which stipulates that those wishing to practice as midwives will have to complete a three-year nursing degree and then a complementary degree (18 months, 3,000 hours minimum) in midwifery.
So they will study 1.5 years longer, but they will have the same salary as nurses after a bachelor's degree - because they will also only complete a first degree. What is the benefit of this? The Ministry of Health has a simple answer: two professions and better chances on the labor market, because the demographic situation is reducing the number of obstetrics-gynecology wards, which are the primary place of work for midwives (and for many of them - the only one). Since there is less and less work for midwives (and vice versa for nurses, in many parts of the country the demand is huge), the government does not want to "produce unemployed midwives," especially since the cost of educating one person at a three-year college can reach up to 120 thousand zlotys.
However, the midwifery community does not agree with this approach, and the lack of an immediate response from the professional self-government has raised suspicions that the chamber knew everything and did not inform its members. The Supreme Chamber of Nurses and Midwives, however, assures that not only were the published provisions not consulted with the self-government, but they even deviate from the only arrangements in which it participated, which ended in mid-2024 with a draft amendment to the law submitted to the Ministry of Health - in which there were no such proposals. The self-government even threatened individuals and entities who would spread the claim that the NIPP had put its hand to the ministerial proposals with legal action.
The Health Ministry, on the other hand, reassures that it does not intend to abolish the midwifery profession, and the draft has been submitted for consultations, which will last 30 days, and now is the time for the environment to provide its opinions and comments (the local government has already provided the main comment that it does not agree with the changes involving the abolition of separate midwifery studies). Although the consultations formally began on May 15, by Tuesday, May 19, more than a thousand comments had already been submitted to the health ministry.
