Izabela Leszczyna sums up six months at the Health Ministry

As for the IVF program, the Health Ministry is pleased with the first confirmed pregnancies, made possible by the use of previously frozen embryos (the program launched on June 1). The availability of the morning-after pill by way of a pharmaceutical service is rarely judged a success, as about 10 percent of pharmacies, rather unevenly distributed, have joined the program, but Izabela Leszczyna stressed at Wednesday's meeting with reporters that she has done her best. - I won't break the wall with my head," she said, referring to President Andrzej Duda's veto.

The issue of accessibility to abortion when the currently legally permissible conditions are met resonated strongly. - Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that it cannot be that a woman who has the right to legally terminate her pregnancy bounces from hospital to hospital and is treated in a way that insults the dignity of the human being, the patient, Leszczyna said. The Ministry of Health and the National Health Fund have therefore changed the general terms of contracts with hospitals so that this right can be enforced. - Of course, I hear those murmurs or even cries from the opposition that there is little money for health and hospitals are being punished," she added, referring to the question posed during the last session of the Sejm by Law and Justice deputies, standing up for one of the punished hospitals. Leszczyna stressed that there is no room for discussion here, as hospitals are obliged to comply with the law, and a hospital with a contract with the National Health Fund must fulfill it.

Among the ministry's successes, the minister also cited prenatal tests, recalling that the list of the tests themselves has been expanded, as well as the age limit, previously set at 35. - A doctor can, if he believes there are indications, refer any pregnant woman for the tests, she stressed.

One problem in the area of women's reproductive health that has gone unresolved for years is perinatal anesthesia and, linked to low availability, the record high rate of births by cesarean section. - What we can do is provide a woman with a natural childbirth without pain or with pain greatly alleviated. As of July 1, the rule is that in those delivery rooms where a minimum of 10 percent of natural deliveries are anesthetized, there will be a bonus in the form of higher pricing," recalled Izabela Leszczyna. In addition, the growth rate of the percentage of deliveries with anesthesia will be rewarded.

Access to anesthesia is also to be facilitated by deregulation, which the ministry is discussing with the national consultant in anesthesiology. The idea is to get doctors to agree to abandon the "one patient one anesthesiologist" rule. Hospital directors warned several months ago that a real increase in the percentage of anesthesia in childbirth could block the very high standards of anesthesia care that specialists in this field of medicine fought for in protests in the late 1990s.