Polish ruling party shaken after doctor without specialisation ran VIP fast-track and earned 1.6 million PLN at Warsaw public hospital

The scandal breaks

Dawid Kacprzyk, a 29-year-old doctor who has not yet completed his specialisation, pulled in roughly 1.6 million PLN in 2025 from medical services, according to his asset declaration. He logged 3,976 hours at the Warsaw Southern Hospital alone (an average of 331 hours per month) while simultaneously serving as a Civic Coalition (KO) district councillor for Ursus and appearing on TV as a commentator.

The disclosures, first reported by Portal Zero, also revealed that Kacprzyk, as coordinator of the hospital’s emergency department, had set up a preferential pathway for politicians from the ruling coalition and their relatives. Those patients were seen within minutes in a dedicated room with sofas and a television, while ordinary patients waited for hours.

The system is truly degenerate. Over the years it has become less and less efficient and increasingly geared toward boosting the earnings of at least some doctors.

Political fallout

Kacprzyk resigned from Civic Coalition immediately after the reports surfaced. Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski ordered audits of all emergency departments in the capital. Opposition figures seized on the case: PiS candidate for prime minister Przemysław Czarnek told reporters the 1.6 million PLN represented 'a mass of services that were not provided to Poles, because KO, together with PSL and the Left, has no money for them' and predicted it would begin the end of the ruling camp.

PiS MP Małgorzata Wassermann floated the question of whether Kacprzyk’s career was enabled by his party card and said the case raised suspicions of two criminal offences, fraud and endangering the life and health of patients. KO MP Dorota Łoboda insisted the party would not sweep the matter under the rug, adding that 'none of us realised that such stories were happening.'

Government response

The prime minister announced he had asked the Supreme Audit Office (NIK) for a comprehensive review of public health-service spending and that the government would fast-track legislation allowing the administration to track individual medical earnings linked to national identification numbers (PESEL). The cabinet adopted a draft law on Tuesday that would give the authorities that power.

This high salary outrages me in two contexts... I think about the level of patient safety in the places where this doctor was on the payroll.

Doctors’ pay in the spotlight

The scandal has drawn attention to the rates doctors can command in Poland’s public system. On social media, medics openly discussed their expectations. A family-medicine specialist with about 20 years of experience in the Lublin region said she now expects 280–300 PLN per hour. One paediatrician with 12 years of experience disclosed an effective net hourly wage of around 90 PLN on an employment contract, a figure other doctors labelled far too low. Several argued that a paediatric specialist should not work for less than 250 PLN per hour, especially in large cities.

Deeper systemic questions

Dr Małgorzata Gałązka-Sobotka, director of the Institute of Health Management at Lazarski University, told TOK FM that the government’s legislative fix was merely 'putting out a fire that has been burning for years' and was not addressing the systemic failures exposed by the case. She highlighted the absence of proper controls on doctors’ working hours and the patchwork oversight of how public funds flow to individual providers.

We are dealing with the suspicion of two crimes: fraud and endangering the life and health of patients.

The hospital’s director is a former deputy health minister from a previous PO-PSL government, and the board includes numerous local-government figures tied to Civic Coalition. The case has become a flashpoint for broader discontent with the state of Poland’s public healthcare.