The Sejm says "no" to flexible days off for honorary blood donors
Honorary blood donors will not be able to use their two days off during any working day, the Parliamentary Petitions Committee has decided, rejecting a motion submitted by the Dobre Państwo Foundation. The Ministry of Health concluded that the proposed measure would be inconsistent with the principle of selfless blood donation.
The Good State Foundation has petitioned the Sejm to amend the regulations regarding days off for honorary blood donors. Currently, under the Public Blood Service Act, donors are entitled to two days off – on the day of donation and the following business day. The Foundation has proposed that donors be able to use these days at any time as a symbolic reward – two consecutive days off, but not tied to the donation date.
This proposal was submitted to the Parliamentary Committee for Petitions for consideration.
A representative of the Department of Health spoke on behalf of the Ministry of Health. She began her speech by emphasizing that the key value of blood donation is its selfless, altruistic nature.
I would start, perhaps perversely, by drawing your attention to the end of the summary and justification for this petition: for people who selflessly donate blood. Here, it's precisely this factor, the dimension of this selfless, altruistic, honorary, unpaid blood donation , that will bring the whole thing to a head," she noted.
She strongly opposed the proposal to detach days off from a specific donation act . In her opinion, the current regulations are protective in nature and serve the regeneration of the donor's body, which is the substantive justification for the right to time off:
The rationale for introducing this second day off (...) was to provide the blood donor with adequate time to recover from the donation. Therefore, if we were to consider this situation in the context of it being another day, albeit a working day, this argument is not really valid.
A representative of the Ministry of Health also warned about the effects of a potential change:
We would be entering a very dangerous area of donation (...), which involves the donor obtaining some kind of gratification that directly exceeds (...) what they incur with the donation itself. This is absolutely inadvisable from the perspective of Polish law, European law, international law, and ethical standards (...). We would definitely oppose such a proposal.
After hearing the opinion of the representative of the Ministry of Health, the MP chairing the meeting admitted that the ministry's arguments were convincing.
This explanation is very (...) specific in explaining the situation, that it is possible to take time off on the day of blood donation as well as the following day. (...) This seems to be going a bit too far. Therefore (...) I am convinced by this argument that the request that is the subject of the petition should not be granted.
In the absence of any objections from the members of the Commission, a decision was made to terminate the petition proceedings.
The Dobre Państwo Foundation also submitted another petition calling for an amendment to the Act on Public Blood Service in such a way that honorary donors would be entitled to time off work not only on the day of blood donation, but also on the two following business days.
The Chairwoman of the Committee, MP Urszula Augustyn, proposed seeking the opinion of the Ministry of Health in this case:
(...) However, it would be worthwhile to consider the proposals contained in this petition and, for example, request an analysis from the Minister of Health. I would recommend, if the rapporteur and the members of the Commission agree, that we nevertheless ask the Minister of Health to analyze the proposals in this petition to see if this proposal is... As I said, because in order to meet expectations, sometimes we can simply overdo it, so to avoid overdoing it and harming the initiative itself, it's worth conducting an analysis. (...) We'll see what the Minister of Health sends us in response to the analysis.
The final decision on this proposal remains to be seen. For now, the current regulations remain unchanged. Days off for honorary blood donors must still fall on the day of donation and immediately after it.
Source: Dziennik.pl/MH
Updated: 17/07/2025 06:30
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