New regulations in Poland: The Patient Ombudsman to combat pseudomedicine
The Polish government has adopted a draft of new regulations aimed at protecting the health of citizens. These changes grant the Patient Ombudsman greater powers in the fight against dangerous medical practices and the spread of misinformation on the internet.
Currently, many patients use unverified therapies that lack scientific evidence. The new law will allow officials to react more effectively to advertisements and service offers that may be harmful to human health or life.
The draft assumes that the Patient Ombudsman will be able to more quickly identify and block the activities of individuals promoting so-called pseudomedicine. Thanks to these new tools, the institution will gain the ability to impose penalties on entities that knowingly mislead patients.
Experts emphasize that this is an important step toward increasing patient safety in Poland. Combating medical misinformation is particularly crucial in an era of easy access to unverified advice on social media.
The new regulations must still go through the legislative process in parliament. If adopted, they will enter into force in the near future, which is expected to significantly limit the scale of fraud in the health sector.