The Health Minister on Friday announced guidelines for hospitals and doctors on abortion. In the presence of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice, she conveyed, first and foremost, that hospitals are required to respect certificates from psychiatrists with which women who wish to undergo abortions come forward.
There are guidelines on abortion, no national consultant
Published Aug. 30, 2024 16:30
The announcement of the guidelines had already been announced by Prime Minister Donald Tusk for weeks, specifically since the July defeat during the vote on the abortion decriminalization bill. They were announced much longer by Izabela Leszczyna - as early as January, the health minister announced that the guidelines would be prepared by scientific societies (the Polish Society of Gynecologists and Obstetricians and the Polish Society for Sexual and Reproductive Health). However, it turned out that these documents do not exhaust the expectations of the health minister - hence the guidelines prepared by the Health Ministry.
They are primarily concerned with ensuring that hospitals and doctors have no doubt that the premise that a woman's health and life are endangered is to be treated separately. It is about a threat to health or life, a threat to health is a sufficient premise, it does not have to be an immediate or sudden threat, the ministry points out.
Secondly, the ministry recalls that the health risk premise covers both somatic and mental health. Ergo, the certificate from a psychiatric specialist is to be respected without the need to obtain a second opinion or convene a consultation. If hospitals fail to comply, they must expect consequences in the form of NFZ inspections and financial penalties (or, in extreme cases, loss of contract for a gynecology-obstetrics department). This is because it will be treated as hindering the availability of the guaranteed service to which the treatment entity is obliged by its contract with the Fund.
The prime minister himself said on Friday that the government is forced to look for legal loopholes, because the balance of power in the Sejm does not allow projects liberalizing anti-abortion laws to be carried out and the implementation - even partial - of the promise made during the election campaign is necessary.
A few hours after the press conference on the guidelines, the industry portal "Rynek Zdrowia" reported that Prof. Krzysztof Czajkowski had been dismissed (it was supposed to have happened several days earlier) from his position as national consultant in gynecology and obstetrics.
