“Today, we really do not know how many hospitals still operate VIP lounges and special offices for the most important people, where they can gain access with a party membership card while ordinary Poles wait in long queues,” President of Poland Karol Nawrocki said during a meeting with residents of Wodzisław County. It was the president’s first public statement regarding the controversy surrounding Warsaw’s South Hospital, which has dominated headlines in recent days.
Speaking today in Grabówka during a meeting with residents of Wodzisław County, President Nawrocki stressed that “especially when the current government is unfortunately failing to meet social expectations, people’s needs, and the voice of the nation, the president must be the voice of the Polish people and speak firmly and decisively about issues that affect our daily lives and concerns.”
“When I see that the county hospital in Wodzisław Śląski wants to close its gynecology and obstetrics ward because only 600–650 children are born each year in Wodzisław County, on the one hand I try to understand that there are certain troubling social trends. But on the other hand, I believe that women living in Wodzisław County, even if there are only 600 or 650 of them giving birth each year, have the right to deliver their children in Wodzisław. That is what a serious Poland looks like,” the president said.
He added that “there are those who would prefer to ignore this problem.”
“Let me remind you that in Wodzisław—Poland, please listen to me—a public fundraising campaign is being organized to collect PLN 4.7 million in order to save the gynecology and obstetrics ward, while at the very same time a man with a party membership card at South Hospital in Warsaw receives PLN 1.5 million for reasons nobody really knows, and here women have nowhere to give birth,” Karol Nawrocki said.
His remarks were met with cheers from those gathered.
The president emphasized that “the president does not listen to Poles only to remain indifferent when attempts are made to create a VIP lounge for the elites.”
“This is not what Poland should look like, and a party membership card in Poland cannot determine whether someone gets access to a doctor or not. (…) That was what the presidential election was about. It broke with traditional political and party pragmatism. It was a clash between ordinary people and their needs, represented by a president of the people, and on the other side there was an alternative that you can all imagine. Today, we truly do not know how many hospitals still have VIP lounges and special offices for the most important people, where they can gain access with a party membership card while ordinary Poles wait in long queues,” President Nawrocki said.
The controversy surrounding South Hospital in Warsaw continues unabated. It began with reports about the high earnings of 28-year-old physician Dawid Kacprzyk, a former member of the Civic Coalition (KO), who served as coordinator of the hospital’s Emergency Department (SOR) despite not having completed a medical specialization.
In addition, the website Zero.pl revealed the existence of a “fast-track” pathway within the hospital’s Emergency Department for Civic Coalition politicians and their families, as well as access to a so-called “VIP lounge.”