The draft law on quality in health care does not meet expectations, believes the Supreme Medical Council

As the presidium points out, the government bill submitted for parliamentary work in December last year differs significantly from the draft that was subject to public consultation in July 2021.

"It should be assumed that many of the solutions included in the act were not actually subject to public consultations, nor was a consensus conference organized, despite the fact that numerous comments were submitted to the draft, and additionally, we are undoubtedly dealing with a draft act with particularly significant social consequences, legal and organizational regulations for the entire healthcare sector,” reads the published position statement.

In the opinion of the Supreme Medical Council, the obligation to obtain authorization on all entities performing medical activities that want to provide services financed from public funds is a solution that excessively bureaucratizes the work of small entities. In the original bill, authorization was only the responsibility of hospitals.

The doctor also believes that the system for reporting adverse events to the register proposed in the draft act is excessively rigorous, and the provisions on reporting are not sufficiently clear and precise. This will reduce the efficiency of the system.

As the NRL points out, the expectations of the medical community are completely inconsistent with the provision that was supposed to introduce a significant mitigation of the criminal liability of medical personnel for unintentional events. The provision speaks of extraordinary leniency, not of exemption from criminal liability. This means that the entire criminal proceedings will have to be conducted in relation to the medical staff, the indictment will be filed with the court and the criminal court will wait for the verdict. Moreover, acts such as inadvertently causing grievous bodily harm are not covered by this provision.

Controversies are also caused by the fact that the indexation of the upper amount of the compensation benefit is to be carried out every five years. In the opinion of the presidium, in the current economic conditions the interval is too long, which destroys the idea of ​​fair compensation. Doctors also believe that the nine-person team for Benefits from the Medical Events Compensation Fund will not be able to efficiently and timely handle all applications submitted from all over the country.

A similar position on the bill is taken by the Agreement of Medical Organizations.

"The government project assumes the introduction of a system, or rather several mechanisms existing side by side, which would not encourage either medical staff or patients to use them. It can be assumed that as a result, a legal document is being created that will have a negligible impact on the reality in health care, will not reduce the overload of courts and prosecutor's offices, will not reduce the pressure on staff, resulting in, for example, shortages of doctors in treatment specialties, will not make it easier for patients to obtain and worthy of compensation, will not contribute to the development of medicine or the improvement of standards of care,” reads the appeal published by the organization.