Adam Niedzielski announced the move at a news conference in Warsaw on Monday, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
The health minister said he had appointed “a panel of 13 experts, including seven female experts” to draw up more detailed pregnancy termination guidelines for medical facilities.
His announcement came after a 33-year-old pregnant woman, named only as Dorota, died of sepsis last month after spending three days in hospital in the southern town of Nowy Targ, news outlets reported.
She had been admitted to hospital after her waters broke in the 20th week of pregnancy, according to the Reuters news agency.
The woman’s husband said that nobody at the hospital had informed them of the danger and that his wife's life could have been saved by inducing a miscarriage because the child had very low chances of survival, Reuters reported.
Medical errors to blame for pregnant woman’s death: health minister
Asked by the media if the woman’s death had been caused by Poland’s strict abortion laws, Niedzielski said that “medical errors” were to blame.
The health minister said: "Every woman whose health or life is in danger at any time during her pregnancy has the right to terminate it."
Meanwhile, Poland’s Ombudsman for Patients’ Rights Bartłomiej Chmielowiec told reporters that in Dorota’s case, "the patient's rights have been violated, the right to provide health services in accordance with current medical knowledge has been violated, the patient's right to having services provided with due diligence has been violated," Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Abortion is allowed in Poland only when the pregnancy endangers the life or health of the woman or if it is a result of "a forbidden act," such as rape or incest.
In March, Polish lawmakers rejected a bill that would have restricted the country's abortion law by imposing prison terms on those aiding terminations.
In December 2021, Polish MPs voted down a proposal that would have outlawed abortion by defining it as homicide.
The country's abortion regulations were last modified after its Constitutional Tribunal in October 2020 ruled that abortion due to serious fetal defects and severe illnesses was unconstitutional.
The ruling prompted a wave of protests across the country.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, Reuters, Euronews