Laboratory diagnosticians - will new legal act solve old problems?

Abstract

The outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic has brought health care issues to the forefront. The necessity to perform tests for the presence of this pathogen and to evaluate their results brought to wider public awareness what exactly laboratory diagnosticians do. On July 12^th, 2022, a draft of a completely new legal act was submitted to the Parliament, which would regulate how to obtain the professional title of laboratory diagnostician, as well as the rules for practicing this profession. The legislative process ended on October 10^th, when the bill was sent to the President for signature. The new legal act, in its essential part, came into force on December 10^th, 2022. The new law provides for a number of significant changes aimed at bringing the rules governing the performance of laboratory diagnostics activities in line with the standards that exist for other professions involved in the provision of health care services. In view of its progressive nature, the draft justifiably raised high hopes for a reasonable and thoughtful regulation of the legal situation of laboratory diagnosticians. However, the changes introduced during the legislative process significantly reduced the effectiveness of the solutions proposed by the authors of the draft. As a result, already shortly after the law was passed, there were voices that despite the creation of a completely new legal act that, in principle, normalizes the legal situation of laboratory diagnosticians, the key demands that had been formulated for many years - particularly with regard to the recognition that the profession of laboratory diagnostician consists of performing health care tasks - had not been realized. It therefore becomes crucial to decide whether the Laboratory Medicine Act can positively affect the profession of laboratory diagnostician. This article aims to answer the question so posed, in particular, taking into account the differences, between the draft law and its enacted content, as well as in comparison with other legislation, which normalizes the way in which health care professions are carried out.