Adam Niedzielski, the health minister in the previous conservative PiS (ECR) government, has been charged with abuse of office for publishing a patient’s private medical information.
Niedzielski was the health minister between 2020 and 2023, during which he led the country’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
But towards the end of his term, the former minister “disclosed through mass media (…😉 data obtained from the Medical Information System” concerning “medicines prescribed for a specified person,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
“He acted to the detriment of the private interest of the injured party,” it added.
In August 2023, Niedzielski revealed on X the identity of Piotr Pisula, a doctor who had spoken in a TV report about the patients who had lost access to prescriptions and had prescribed himself certain medicines, including painkillers and psychotropic drugs. The aim was to prove that there was no problem with access to medicines.
However, many medical professionals criticised the minister for publicly naming the doctor, yet Niedzielski defended himself, saying, “He had just defended the good name of his ministry but above all the patient’s interests.”
Following the backlash, Niedzielski resigned from his post, while then-prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki (PiS, ECR) admitted his minister had made “a mistake.”
Pisula told Wirtualna Polska that the minister’s resignation “does not eliminate the effects of violating personal rights” while admitting that the consequences faced by the minister made him feel “slightly different as a citizen and as a patient.”
“I felt a glimmer of hope that when a person violates basic principles of trust in an area as sensitive as healthcare, there are consequences,” he added.
(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)
Source: euractiv.com
