Which of President Nawrocki's promises are worth taking seriously?

In the health area, it began with an initiative beneficial to public health, including the protection of the health of the youngest, concerning the ban on the use of tanning beds by minors, ends with a decision that, although unsurprising, stuns with its lack of understanding of the dire state of the mental health of young Poles and, to put it mildly, the great inequalities when it comes to basic guarantees of well-being. To put it very simply: the source and cause of the health problems of many thousands, if not tens of thousands, of young people is the family environment. Not necessarily pathological in the full sense of the word. Taking away from minors (and their parents) perhaps the only chance to fix what spoils even the pace of life, the lack of awareness on the part of parents, their own mental well-being problems, can only be assessed negatively. And the fact that the president's signature on the bill could be considered a surprise, if not a sensation, is perhaps the saddest thing about it all.

But this is in the past. On August 6, a new presidency begins. Karol Nawrocki will have his chances in the legislative process - the first one will probably be soon, as perhaps in a few days the revised health benefits law, the so-called "Save the County Hospitals Act," will reach his desk. The Senate will take it up as early as August 7, and if it does not bring amendments - everything will be in the President's hands. A veto or a petition to the Constitutional Court hangs in the air - a unanimous, in effect, vote by the Law and Justice club against the bill will tip the balance to the side of the veto.

And that's how we will live here. Because while it's hard to assume (and even hard to imagine) that Karol Nawrocki will block all the bills that will come out of parliament, you can bet many dollars against one nut that he will do so whenever the bills touch on issues that he or PiS (Law and Justice or him) find contentious and controversial. Disputable and controversial, or simply having the potential to make political capital, no matter the cost.

Not everything that is said during the campaign is later translated into real decisions (just to recall Andrzej Duda's promise to prepare a law on the nursing and midwifery professions, which the Law and Justice candidate made during a meeting with protesters in the spring of 2015). However, at least some of Karol Nawrocki's campaign statements are worth taking seriously. Among them, those on immunization deserve special attention. Nawrocki has very strongly and unequivocally declared himself an opponent of "compulsory" vaccination of both adults and children (except for diseases that pose a threat to the general population, among which he has pointed out - risking mockery - "palio"). Karol Nawrocki's views on the matter are much closer to those of the Confederation than those of the majority of the Law and Justice Party, but this does not at all rule out the scenario in which, by law, immunizations - all or part of them - will lose their mandatory status. Not in this term, of course.

This, of course, may be extreme pessimism, but laissez-faire in the area of public health while at the same time being extremely conservative in matters related to procreative health (abortion, contraception, in vitro, sex education) are trends that may dominate the discussion of health issues for the coming years. Even though it is clear that while these issues cannot be ignored, the health care system - its capacity, its resilience to crises (of various kinds, one often speaks of a crisis resulting from the proximity of war, but the door has already been opened wide by the demographic crisis), its potential to meet health needs should focus the attention of those who make and will make decisions. Positive and negative.