Is Poland violating human rights?

Written and published January 17/2025, By Marta Koblańska, Photo: Daniel Reche, Pixabay

One of the top Polish psychiatric hospitals in Lodz, central Poland, unabled a parcel delivery to its patient, demanding an entry fee from the services provider. The parcel had been left, though in the Polish Post Office, just ten blocks from the hospital.

On January 11 2025, a member of a family of a disabled patient of Szpital Babińskiego in Lodz, Aleksandrowska 159 street, being on bensodiazepine, asked Polish Post to deliver a parcel to him. The parcel included some food, coffee, and cigarettes, which can alleviate suffering due to benzodiazepine cut off, as well as apples, giving much help for patients treated with psychiatric medicines. Standard parcel with medium weight dispatched with Pocztex from Warsaw to Łódź is around 20 PLN. But Polish Post offered an extra 15 PLN delivery service for a designated date. Having in mind the kindness of a courier delivering a previous parcel to the same patient and the same hospital, this service has been paid for. The delivery date has been set for Monday, January 13, as Sunday is a day free from work, despite the transport to Łódź was taking place yet on Saturday.

Monday came, and the parcel was found in Aleksandrowska 149 instead of 159 street, with the information left for the receiver, it is possible to collect at the Polish Post office. The patient, to whom the parcel was addressed to, obviously could not go to the post office and collect it due to his health condition and the rules applied in the hospital. The sender asked the hospital personnel to collect the parcel for the patient/recipient as it could not have been delivered directly due to the entry fee. The courier stated he would have to pay himself the fee, or the hospital would have charged the patient. The fact of payment, the delivery date, and the service by the sender of the parcel should secure the parcel’s receipt. But this has not been performed, and did not happen.

What are Polish hospitals dedicated to?

Instead of the collection of the parcel for the patient, the sender received on Wednesday, January 15, a furious phone call from the chief of the hospital division to which the patient was assigned. The chief was touched by the email with a request to collect the parcel for the patient. The doctor strongly underlined the legal obligation of a hospital is patients’ treatment, not the collection of parcels. He added, though, after making sure the sender is aware of how hospitals function in Poland, that demand from hospital a parcel tracking is not exactly what they provide. The sender managed to explain the case to the doctor.  Though there has not been tracking, but the parcel collection after the hospital required fees for entry. The doctor denied obligatory entry fees, and the next day the patient was released from the hospital. The parcel remained at the post office. The patient is now in a dedicated centre in Łód,ź further asking for cigarettes and fruits to relieve the effects of breaking addiction to bensodiazepines. These are the most difficult to cancel from the list of medications prescribed for a psychiatric patient and require a strong medical knowledge and knowledge of brain functioning to do so.

Just to recall. Receiving a parcel is a patient’s right. The right to receive a parcel at the hospital or jail is one of the basic human rights, as everyone is equal in owning property. A dedicated parcel may be an example of that.

Editor’s note: Due to technical issues, the post originally numbered 173 under the title,The key for domestication. Humans’ capability or plant’s domesticability?” published on January 15/2025 became post 224 while the post published on January 17/2025 with the title,, Is Poland violating human rights? has been numbered 173. I am sorry for the inconvenience.