Sejm: Commission "defended" health minister

19:15 - this is the result of the vote, so it's hard to talk about surprise. The coalition "for" the head of the ministry, the opposition against. The indictment with which - this is her own term - Katarzyna Sójka came forward did not convince the deputies of the groupings forming the coalition to turn away from Sobierańska-Grenda, even if the latter defended herself substantively, but not very effectively.

The main line of attack of the opposition is: the financial crisis of the National Health Fund, the collapse of hospitals and the lack of prospects in connection with the limitation of services and the expected further reduction of funding for overdrafts, savings at the expense of patients' sense of security (worsening accessibility to diagnostic tests, surgeries, possible cuts in the lists of free medicines), promoting and supporting the decision to liquidate departments (50% lump sum for two years after liquidation), lack of strategy, even inaction, more or less open support for the private sector and even - creating conditions for the actual privatization of health care.

The minister defended herself sparingly, accurately calculating that she had carried out 239 amendments to legislation in nine months, and recalling that practically from the beginning of her tenure she has been repeating that the key challenge is to stabilize and balance the payer's budget, and that the fact that it is in crisis is due to decisions made at the end of the Law and Justice government, especially the changes to the increase law, which, while good, was introduced without financial security.

The Civic Coalition deputies focused on the applicants, recalling the long list of - actual, but now somewhat overdue - faults of PiS governments in the area of health (covid hospitals and the waste of funds during the pandemic, low efficiency in the fight against COVID-19, and even the Health Minister's disclosure of sensitive doctor-patient data, as if that had anything to do with the topic of the meeting). They recalled (justifiably, since this is one of the main arguments against Sobierańska-Grenda) that hospital departments were suspended and liquidated at a torrent also when Law and Justice was in power, and that the breach in the payer's budget is the result of a hasty and rapid multiplication of costs, decisions not adapted to the rate of growth of the payer's revenues.

The Diet will take up the proposal on Thursday, and an outcome other than rejection would be a sensation that would even mean the end of the coalition and new elections.