Warsaw, Jan. 19, 2002
|
The Commissioner
for Human Rights Council of Europe |
I would
like to inform about the situation of medical malpractice victims in Poland
and our organization's work and our situation. This letter is a request
for help. Polish Patients' Association Primum Non Nocere - was established
in November 1998 as an NGO, organization of medical malpractice victims
survivors and their families. In Poland such people are left without social
help and medical assistance. Malpractice cases are strictly concealed in
the name of medical solidarity, the interest and safety of physicians obviously
more important than the fate and health of their victims.
Apart from our daily activity (legal aid to victims) we have organised press
conferences, sent petitions to members of parliament and staged protests
and demonstrations in order to put more pressure on politicians to change
the law. In response the Polish authorities launched attacks against our
organization. They did this in two ways:
1.
The Warsaw municipal authority prosecutor brought court charges against
us when our volunteers put up posters advocating patient rights and help
for medical malpractice victims. The same happened after we put up our parliamentary
election posters. ( In the time of parliamentary election we had our candidates
) The official reason for the charges was that the posters caused disorder
and were placed on municipal posts (cf: article 9 and 10 of the European
Human Rights Convention). To date the courts have of course dismissed all
accusations but it took time and nerves. You can see the court verdicts
scans on our website at:
verdict 1
page 1: http://www.sppnn.org.pl/liber/o1.gif
page 2:http://www.sppnn.org.pl/liber/o2.gif
verdict 2
page 1: http://www.sppnn.org.pl/liber/w1.gif
page 2: http://www.sppnn.org.pl/liber/w2.gif
page 3: http://www.sppnn.org.pl/liber/w3.gif
The public prosecutor lost in court but continued to make the news with
further charges and our next case is scheduled for January 21. The charges
here are against Mrs Stanislawa Liber, a widow whose husband died in result
of medical malpractice. The purpose of such proceedings is to make our life
difficult and force us into stopping our activity.
2. There
are also another accusations against our organization - but let me start
with some information about the situation in Poland: data from other countries
allow us to conclude that 20.000 - 40.000 people in Poland die or suffer
each year due to medical malpractice. Only five or six hundred medical malpractice
survivors get social and medical help (after a court verdict confirming
they had fallen prey to medical malpractice. In Poland we have 3 (A,B
and C) legal ways to confirm medical malpractice:
A. The civil court. The proceeding can take several years and often
are so costly that most victims have no money to start them (a violation
of art. 16 rec. (200)/5, Council of Europe Ministers' Committee). Those
who lose their cases also lose a lot of money and win the hatred of the
medical lobby. Medical solidarity and forged medical records make such hearings
very difficult. Because of this we only process approximately 1,200 civil
court complaints per year, with the courts returning about 500 verdicts
confirming medical malpractice.
B. Criminal investigation. Criminal court verdicts confirming medical
malpractice are extremely rare in Poland. The public persecutor either refuses
to investigate complaints or winds up the investigation without launching
court charges.
C. The medical court. Medical court verdicts are also extremely rare
in Poland In 2000 there were approximately 2,000 complaints by malpractice
victims to the medical chamber and only 146 verdicts confirming medical
malpractice cases. There were no verdicts banning malpracticing doctors
from their profession. Before we started up in 1998 there were only 18 malpractice-confirming
verdicts. Proceedings before the medical chamber can take place only in
the presence of a chamber member (doctor). Medical malpractice victims can
take part in the proceedings only as witnesses, if they are invited to testify.
Medical hearings are hidden from the public and the press (a violation of
art. 6 of the European Human Rights Convention).
We can
estimate that each year no less then 15, 000 medical malpractice victims
suffer and receive no help. Such cases are swept under the carpet in Poland,
hence our efforts to disclose them and give victims a chance to make Their
complaints public. A person outside Poland has set up a web guestbook in
which medical malpractice victims or their families can publish complaints.
There is only one condition - the complaint must be signed. You will find
the guestbook (in Polish) at:
http://htmlgear.lycos.com/guest/control.guest?u=sppnn0&i=1&a=view
The site also contains an outline of the medical malpractice problem, our
reasons for disclosing medical malpractice cases and other information (in
Polish):
http://www.angelfire.com/extreme2/lista/lista.htm
When we informed the media about the list of complaints, the medical lobby
launched attacks against us. Their argumentation was that it was "illegal
and criminal to publish complaints with no juridical verdict", or that it
is "offensive for the medical profession to place such information in the
internet".
A new ombudsman was elected in Poland last year. Our relations with his predecessor (professor A. Zielinski) were very good. The present ombudsman, professor A. Zoll, is a lawyer from Cracow.... / ....this part of text is temporaly hiden..../.... He wrote a letter to the minister of justice suggesting investigations into the weblist of medical malpractice victims, banning the list and punishing us and the listed malpractice victims for ruining the medical lobby's image (cf: art. 15 and 16 of the Recommendation Rec. (2000) 5, Council of Europe Ministers' Committee). The prosecution agreed to open the case.
You can
find information (in Polish) about the new Polish ombudsman's activity and
the text of his letter to the minister of justice on the National Medical
Chamber's website:
http://www.nil.org.pl/news/serwis/se100701p.htm
The Polish authorities' steps in this respect are a serious violation of
Recommendation Rec. (2000) 5 of the Council of Europe Ministers' Committee
and have been undertaken in order is to hamper our work.
Please regard this letter as a complaint and request for help.
Best regards,
|
Adam
Sandauer, Ph. D. |
