The parliament has rejected the law on quality. By one vote

The answer to this question is hidden in the voting results. Six Law and Justice MPs did not take part in the vote, two abstained, including former Deputy Health Minister Jozefa Szczurek-Zelazko, who voted the same way when the Sejm adopted the quality law. It is no secret that for many weeks Law and Justice deputies were convinced by representatives of district hospitals (the deputy headed such a hospital for many years) that the quality law poses - in the current, very difficult for first and second level hospitals - a big threat related to, for example, the accreditation process and related costs. The entire legislative process, which lasted a good dozen months, indicated that the law faced obstacles every now and then and did not enjoy much support even in the Law and Justice club.

The original voting results already indicated that if not for the absence of a dozen opposition deputies, the Law and Justice party would not have been able to pass the bill in February. On Friday, the opposition mobilized much better in terms of turnout. It was the PiS side that ran out of votes.

Such a decision by the Sejm was sought by medical workers' organizations - including local governments of all professions, which jointly appealed on the eve of the vote in the Sejm to deputies to sustain the Senate's veto. And while an analysis of the first vote on the bill indicated that this scenario was as possible as possible, no one seems to have believed it. This is also evidenced by an early campaign to collect signatures on a petition to President Andrzej Duda to veto or refer the bill to the Constitutional Court - by Friday, 20,000 signatures had been collected.

Although the health minister claims that the Sejm's decision is a victory for corporate interests over patient welfare, it seems to be primarily his political, spectacular, defeat, which he owes enormously to the deputies of his club. It is a paradox that, for political reasons, Law and Justice deputies "overturned" on the last centimeters of the last straight, the flagship bill of a minister who is preparing to run for the Law and Justice lists. Perhaps, by the way, as one hears from the parliamentary corridors, this is mostly the result of internal clashes and a race for districts and a place on the list.