Today, during a meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on Public Health (SANT), there was an exchange of views with Health Minister Izabela Leszczyna on the priorities of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the field of public health. PiS MEP Waldemar Buda spoke during the discussion.
Waldemar Buda addressed the presidency’s assurances that “safety is the priority in the field of public health.” “Let me just say that in Poland over the past year, waiting times to see a doctor have increased from 3 to 4 months—by exactly one month. I would also like to add that the National Health Fund (NFZ) is not paying for services and owes 3 billion to hospitals in 2024 alone,” noted the PiS politician, also pointing to the problem of hospital wards being closed and the recent lack of funding for oncology and its modernization. “All of this can be topped off with the latest scandal, where it turns out that fentanyl is essentially available by prescription online. It was even ordered under the minister’s name,” added the MEP, referring to an incident in which a reporter from a television station easily purchased a prescription for the deadly drug, issued in Minister Leszczyna’s name. “I appeal to the minister not to urge anyone in the European Parliament—or more broadly in the EU—to bring about the kind of destabilization of the system that we are currently facing in Poland. Today, the system is in a truly catastrophic state,” said Buda, urging that, for this reason, we should not follow the path Poland has been taking since last year. “Because a four-month wait to see a specialist is the worst result since 2012. It’s simply a tragedy,” he stated.
