Doctor claims defamation against health minister

A Polish doctor has demanded that the health minister apologise and make a donation to a hospice charity for publishing his personal details along with what he claims are defamatory statements about him on social media.

On Thursday, private broadcaster TVN screened footage about patients in the city of Poznan being unable to receive pain killers due to new prescription regulations which came into force on August 2.

The doctor commenting on the situation, Piotr Pisula, said he was unable to prescribe the necessary medication. Health Minister Adam Niedzielski later published Pisula's personal data on X (formerly Twitter) along with claims that he had prescribed the restricted medication in his own name.

Pisula issued a legal notice on Monday demanding an apology and the sum of PLN 100,000 (EUR 22, 580) to be paid by Niedzielski to a Poznan hospice.

Later on Monday, health ministry spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz said a check of the electronic prescription system had shown that Pisula had never tried to prescribe the drugs to patients.

"On the day on which the material was aired on TVN News, he did not try to issue a single prescription for his patient, however he managed to issue it for himself," Andrusiewicz said.

The spokesman also addressed the issue of Minister Niedzielski's Friday social media post in which he accused Dr Pisula of lying on TVN.

"The health minister's post is a fight against a doctor's deceit and no crime was committed," he said.