“These pathologies carry the logo of Civic Platform,” Zbigniew Bogucki said in the Sejm, referring to the scandal surrounding the Southern Hospital. The Head of the Chancellery of the President accused Donald Tusk of evading responsibility and called on the Prime Minister to apologize to patients and to Poles waiting in queues to see doctors.
The scandal at the Warsaw Southern Hospital continues to resonate. According to revealed information, an informal “VIP lounge” was allegedly operating in the hospital’s emergency department (ED), providing politicians of the Civic Coalition (KO) and their associates with privileged access to medical tests, while ordinary patients waited for hours in the corridor. The unit was coordinated by a young doctor and Civic Coalition (KO) councillor Dawid Kacprzyk, who lost his job at the facility after the case came to light.
The scandal broke after Kacprzyk published his asset declaration, which showed annual earnings of 1.6 million PLN. On Thursday, the Warsaw city hall announced that the doctor had returned part of the money to the institution. According to the office, since June 15 Dawid Kacprzyk corrected 33 invoices covering the period from January 31, 2025 to June 16, 2026. He returned 0.5 million PLN to the hospital’s account.
On Thursday, it was reported by Niezalezna.pl that the prosecutor’s office is still at a very early stage – it is determining what exactly may become the subject of proceedings. So far, it relies solely on media reports.
It is also worth noting that Kacprzyk simultaneously served as deputy ED coordinator at the Bródno Hospital and received higher rates there than other doctors. Moreover, opposition politicians point to another striking example from Grójec county, where a 32-year-old orthopedic doctor managing two hospitals earned 3 million PLN.
Although the case has stirred public opinion, as shown for example by an analysis by the Res Futura Data House collective, as many as 96 percent of participants in online discussions considered the special treatment of politicians to be a form of privileging people connected to power at the expense of ordinary patients.
Bogucki to absent Tusk: this pathology carries the logo of Civic Platform
In the Sejm, Zbigniew Bogucki, Head of the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland, spoke on the matter. At the beginning of his speech, he pointed to the absence of the head of government – Donald Tusk, Minister of Health Jolanta Sobierańska-Grenda, and Minister of the Interior and Administration Marcin Kierwiński.
“The Council of Ministers is very much incomplete today, because neither Prime Minister Tusk, nor Minister Kierwiński, nor the Minister of Health are here. I think we know why these people are not here today during this debate. I think all Poles, and in particular Polish patients, their families, as well as 100,000 Poles who lost their jobs in the last year and are now unemployed – I am addressing Minister Domański here – who can only dream of salaries like those of a very young Civic Platform (PO) activist who earned 1.6 million PLN during a year in which 100,000 Poles lost their jobs, under pathological conditions” – Bogucki said.
He added that “Donald Tusk does not want to admit it in the end.”
The Sejm on Friday passed a bill linking information on medical salaries to PESEL numbers or professional license numbers. This expands the scope of data collected by the Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Tariff System. Information provided to the Agency by medical entities will no longer be anonymized.
Bogucki also referred to the content of the bill and its justification. “What is the real reason that suddenly you came back from holidays for a moment and decided to very quickly introduce a bill concerning the ordering of medical salaries, although you also do not want to listen to the opposition, you do not want to accept amendments, so that recruitment and competition procedures for medics are transparent?” he said.
“I move on to what Prime Minister Tusk, who is not here today, said in relation to this bill. I quote: these distortions do not have the color of one party, these distortions do not only have a political label,” he recalled Tusk’s words.
“Is that really the case? Let us calmly and honestly examine this situation. The Southern Hospital is managed by whom? By the mayor from Civic Platform (PO) – Rafał Trzaskowski. He has a specific logo and belongs to a specific political party. Another thing – this young party apparatchik who earned 1.6 million PLN is a Civic Coalition (KO) councillor. That is a specific group, a specific party, and a specific logo,” Bogucki argued.
He continued: “This young man is a protégé of the absent Minister Kierwiński. Minister Kierwiński also belongs to Civic Platform (PO), the Civic Coalition (KO), and has a specific logo. Finally, the people running this hospital, including the supervisory board, also have specific logos. Many of them, though not all, are linked to Civic Platform (PO). And then the Polish Prime Minister, who is the head of this grouping – the Civic Coalition (KO), Civic Platform (PO) – says: these distortions do not have the color of one party, they do not only have a political label.”
“You should come out and apologize”
“Prime Minister, these distortions and pathologies carry the logo of Civic Platform (PO) and the Civic Coalition (KO), and you cannot escape from this. Instead of running away and hiding like an ostrich with its head in the sand, taking the Minister of Health and Minister Kierwiński with you so as not to discuss this topic, staying as quiet as possible over this coffin,” he said addressing the absent Tusk.
As he stated – “you should come out here in the Sejm and apologize to Poles, to those patients who cannot access doctors, who are waiting in queues, who were sent away by your ineffective government from planned life- and health-saving procedures last year. Also to those 100,000 Poles who lost their jobs in the last year. You do not have the courage, Prime Minister Tusk, to stand here and say ‘I am sorry, this is our fault, this is our logo, this is our pathology’, and you should do it.”
In his view – “if the presidential election, which did not happen thanks to the wisdom and foresight of Poles, had been won by the Civic Platform (PO), Civic Coalition (KO) candidate Rafał Trzaskowski, then in practice such a hospital, and in fact the pathologies of the Southern Hospital, would exist all over Poland. The whole country would be like the Southern Hospital. Why? Because VIP lounges for party officials and queues for everyone else, births in emergency departments for the rest, and contempt. This is what emerges from this case. Poles did not allow this. And the President also did not allow this.”
At the end of his speech, he addressed the Minister of National Defence Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. “You were, Prime Minister, kind enough to tell the President and the opposition that they sit in the back bench. Looking at you today, Prime Minister, when you are alone, one could say you have been left exposed. They are playing – Donald Tusk and his associates are playing this game today, and you have been left in the open. Today it is the government bench that is the bench you spoke about…” he concluded.