The leader of Law and Justice (PiS), Jarosław Kaczyński, announced on Friday a campaign of meetings in front of hospitals. It is to be a response to the growing crisis in the healthcare system. “We want society to know whose fault this is and to know that it can be changed,” he declared at a press conference.
For several days, Niezalezna.pl has been describing the dire situation in Polish hospitals. There is a shortage of funds for treating Poles, which means that patients are having their procedures postponed, and some hospital departments are being closed. On Friday, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński commented on the matter.
The politician emphasized that the current situation is already associated with “the prospect of death, or even the actual death of very many people.” He referred to today’s announcement that the government would allocate an additional 3.5 billion to healthcare, which he considers insufficient.
Commenting on the closure of some hospital wards, he drew attention to maternity units. Instead of working there, midwives are reportedly being assigned to emergency departments. “In emergency rooms there are people with serious injuries, in critical condition, and often contagious. In short, these are environments – apart from infectious disease hospitals – that are the worst possible for a woman giving birth,” he stressed.
“All of this together constitutes, on the one hand, not just a problem in itself, but even a tragedy to which the government does not respond, and – on the other hand – it is a very serious contribution to the way of governing, as well as to what happened during the election campaigns,” he said, recalling the promises of those in power, who spoke of an immediate improvement as if by a “magic wand.”
According to Kaczyński, the current situation shows that “those in power are people who not only blatantly break the law and, in fact, destroy the achievements of the last thirty-some years of independent Poland […] but also ruin individual areas of state functioning, including this one that is particularly important for the safety and lives of citizens – the healthcare system.”
“The ultimate answer can only be one – this government should be changed. But since at the moment such a prospect does not appear, we can react in only one way,” he declared. The PiS leader announced a campaign of meetings outside hospitals. “We want society – unfortunately, today often successfully misinformed – to know how things really are, to know whose fault it is, and to know that it can be changed. We just need to create a government fit for these times,” he said.
“These are very difficult times, not only because of this […] but this government, which is currently in power, would not be suitable even for very good times, because – as the saying goes – they would govern in such a way that even in the desert, sand would become increasingly difficult to find,” he stated.