The Ombudsman's Office has received complaints from people who - after a psychiatric examination in the emergency room - have not been admitted to the hospital, and at the same time have not been able to return home on their own. The problem concerns patients who are brought to facilities often in a state of psychomotor agitation, after direct coercion, and are subsequently ineligible for hospitalization.
In such cases, they are not entitled to free sanitary transport - which means they are left unattended, often in remote facilities, without documents, money or proper clothing.
According to the current law (the Law on Publicly Funded Health Care Services), free transportation is available only in situations:
- the need for immediate treatment at another facility,
- The need to maintain continuity of treatment,
- A musculoskeletal dysfunction that prevents the use of public transportation.
As a result, people who have not been formally hospitalized, but have been taken to the hospital in accordance with the provisions of the Mental Health Law (Article 18(5) and (7)), cannot be supported in returning home. This is a situation that violates human dignity, protected by Article 30 of the Polish Constitution.
The RPO's office has turned to the Health Ministry on the issue. In a letter to the Director of the Department of Public Health, Dagmara Korbasinska-Chwedczuk, Director Mierzejewski asks about the possibility of introducing systemic solutions that would provide such people with safe and free transportation to their place of residence.
Similar problems also affect other patients - such as the elderly, who have no way to return home after their hospitalization is over, and no relatives come forward to pick them up. It is then incumbent on health facilities and municipalities to find ad hoc solutions. However, for those who are not admitted for treatment - despite being reported to the hospital - the loophole remains unsettled.
The only exception provided for in the current legislation is when psychiatric hospitalization is based on a court order, in which case the duty of transportation falls on the provincial marshal (Article 46(2b) of the Mental Health Law).
Source: RPO
