Health Minister Izabela Leszczyna estimates that the Sejm could deal with an amendment to the law, toughening penalties for attacks on medics, even before its vacation. This is not out of the question, but it seems that the changes to the law will have to wait until September, however. The draft has not yet been approved by the Council of Ministers' Standing Committee.
Tougher penalties for attacks on medics: when?
Published July 10, 2025 16:16
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Izabela Leszczyna has been announcing changes to the legislation since May, provoked by the tragedy that occurred in Cracow, when a doctor, Dr. Tomasz Solecki, died at the hands of a patient on April 29. On Thursday, appearing in the media, she repeated her announcement from the end of June - still in July, the draft amendments to the Criminal Code and the Misdemeanor Code should complete the government path and go to the Sejm. The lower house is scheduled to hold two more sessions before the vacation - one in July, the other (one-day) in early August.
More specifics could be gleaned from the discussion this week (July 8) during a meeting of the Subcommittee on Mental Health, which dealt with the topic of aggression against health care workers. Deputy Justice Minister Arkadiusz Myrcha informed deputies that the government should adopt a draft by the end of July to improve the safety of medical workers.
The changes to the Criminal Code are primarily a tightening of penalties for attacks on medics that result in an immediate threat to health and life. Amendments to the Misdemeanor Code introduce a new category of acts - any act of aggression, disorder, in a medical facility, will be an offense, punishable by a severe financial fine (the minimum fine for such an act will be one thousand zlotys). This will also apply to such acts as demolished waiting rooms, during which no specific employee was the object of the attacks.
- A safe medic is a safe patient," said Dr. Grzegorz Wrona, representing the medical government, noting that the topic of aggression against medical personnel must be constantly on the attention spectrum of decision-makers and cannot be "stock". Dr. Wrona stressed that doctors do not care most about the amount of penalties. - The amount of penalties is less important than that the interventions, which I hope will follow, be immediate, inevitable and effective. And not for one or two years," he said. He also cited his experience from his time as Supreme Ombudsman for Professional Responsibility, when he made reports to the prosecutor's office regarding cases of patient aggression against doctors. - I was appalled by the number of decisions to discontinue at the prosecutor's office," he stressed, expressing the hope that the guidelines that prosecutors have now received will translate into a change in the approach to the reports reaching prosecutors' offices.
