- If we see that there are some elements that we can improve, we will, of course, improve them," said Health Minister Adam Niedzielski, referring to the reaction of the speech therapists' community to the provisions contained in the bill on certain medical professions. Recall, the bill is to regulate 17 professions, in addition to speech therapists, these will include dental assistants, dieticians, electro-radiologists and dental hygienists.

- The law is a response to the expectations of nearly 250,000 people who want the profession they practice to be normalized and regulated. We have sanctioned there educational standards related to various professions, including speech therapists," Adam Niedzielski stressed at Friday's press conference.

Regulation of the profession had been sought for years by the Polish Association of Speech Therapists. However, the community wanted a separate law.

- We have asked both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Family and Social Policy for inter-ministerial arrangements for the preparation of a government law on the speech therapy profession. Related professions, such as psychotherapists and psychologists, have similar forms of work to speech therapists. These professions also function in both medical and non-medical entities. They have been allowed to regulate their profession under a separate law. With us, none of the ministries have cooperated in this area," Milena Stasiak, chairwoman of the Polish Association of Speech Therapists, told Medexpress in an interview.

One of the issues objectionable to the environment is that the legislature has assumed that speech therapist is only a medical profession.

- The ministry has not thoroughly investigated the employment structure. Medical institutions proportionally employ very few speech therapists, compared to those who work in other public and non-public entities, mainly in the Ministry of Education, as well as running their own businesses. It is paradoxical for us that the health ministry assumes that with this law it will regulate the work of speech therapists who also function outside medical institutions. There is a provision to protect the professional title of speech therapists. In practice, it will, as it were, take away the right to use the title of speech therapist from those who do not register in the register to be created under the provisions of this law," Milena Stasiak pointed out.

Speech therapists are warning that if the law is passed in its current form, those in private practice will close their offices as they will outgrow the costs associated with maintaining a medical facility. As a result, services may become more expensive, and their availability will drop dramatically.

The Health Minister recalled that the new law will now be discussed and worked on by committees.

- If we see that there are some elements that we can improve, we will, of course, improve them, but I want to make it very clear that this is a bill that has been consulted with all the associations, with all the organizations working in these 17 professions. The local governments are not there yet, but we are open to cooperation," the health ministry head declared.

- We had already been making demands since 2022, when the bill appeared, mainly regarding the establishment of an independent professional chamber of speech therapists. The comments collected by the ministry as part of the public consultation were not made public until a year later, in January in 2023. There were as many as 700 comments from various entities, and the consultation report contains 400 pages. Few of these comments were taken into account during further proceedings, the chairwoman of the Polish Association of Speech Therapists stressed.

- The positions we directed to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Family and Social Policy have therefore also been forwarded to the parliamentary and senate committees. We will try to make sure that parliamentarians listen to us and that our representatives participate in the meetings of these committees," Milena Stasiak added.