Polish healthminister in trouble over confidentiality slip

Warsaw [Poland], August 6:Polish Health Minister Adam Niedzielski is being criticized by the nation's doctors for allegedly violating medical confidentiality.
Trust in the minister has been destroyed and further cooperation is impossible, Lukasz Jankowski, chairman of the Polish Medical Association, wrote to the government in Warsaw on Saturday.
Niedzieski was angered by a critical television report that showed a hospital doctor from Poznan complaining about problems in issuing electronic prescriptions for patients after an operation.
Niedzielski tweeted that the report was untrue, adding that the doctor shown had been able to prescribe psychotropic drugs and painkillers for
himself without any difficulties.
A spokesperson for the medical association said this disclosure represented a breach of medical confidentiality.
Niedzielski responded by saying that as a minister he had the legal right to inspect prescriptions that doctors issue to themselves, in an official statement.
No one improperly viewed the electronic account of the doctor or a patient, he said, adding that he was just trying to correct an untrue statement on television.
Forty-nine-year-old Niedzielski has been the health minister of Poland since August 2020.
Source: Qatar Tribune