Warsaw doctor’s 1.6 million PLN year ignites Sejm vote on linking pay to PESEL numbers
A 29‑year‑old hospital coordinator without a specialisation earned roughly 1.6 million PLN in 2025, while the average Pole would need 23 years for the same sum. Within three days the government pushed through legislation to track every medic’s total public‑sector pay.
The case that broke the dam
Dawid Kacprzyk, a 29‑year‑old physician and councillor for the Civic Coalition (KO) in Warsaw’s Ursus district, served as emergency‑department coordinator at the municipal Szpital Południowy. According to asset declarations and press investigations, his 2025 income reached about 1.6 million złoty, supplemented by a Porsche Panamera, a 900 000 PLN flat and multiple bank accounts. The hospital also maintained a separate waiting room for KO politicians and their relatives, who were admitted outside the normal queue.
After the story broke on Zero.pl, the doctor was dismissed, resigned from KO, returned 500 000 PLN to the hospital and suspended work at Warsaw’s Bródnowski Hospital. Prosecutors opened an investigation.
- Dawid Kacprzyk (2025)
- 1600000 PLN
- Median wage earner (annual net)
- 68400 PLN
How one salary compares with the country
The latest data from Statistics Poland put the median gross monthly wage at 7 907 PLN in December 2025, or roughly 5 700 PLN net. An employee on that salary would need about 23 years to match Kacprzyk’s single‑year income. “Cases of this kind are understandably sensationalised, and they are fortunately not very frequent,” economist Marek Zuber told Fakt. “But the earnings of doctors on employment contracts look very different from those on civil‑law contracts.”
A hospital staffer breaks her silence
An anonymous doctor at Szpital Południowy told Fakt that the gap between veteran staff and new hires is stark. Newcomers were offered 20 000–25 000 PLN a month while long‑serving doctors struggled to negotiate a 2‑złoty raise. Kacprzyk, she alleged, was given the maximum rate by hospital president Anna Łukasik personally, bypassing medical director Agata Kusz‑Rynkun. “She gave a ****ing junior who has held a medical licence for a year‑and‑a‑half a ceiling rate, and now the blame is meant to fall on Dr Kusz‑Rynkun,” the doctor said.
When she bargains with us over a 2‑złoty raise, she gives a ceiling rate to a person who has been a doctor for eighteen months, and now the blame for her decision is supposed to land on Dr Kusz‑Rynkun.
Parliament moves in three days
The cabinet adopted a bill on 16 June allowing the Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Tariffs (AOTMiT) to collect pay data linked to each doctor’s PESEL number or medical‑licence number. The health committee passed it on 17 June, and the Sejm voted it through on 19 June with 253 votes in favour, none against and 177 abstentions. If President Karol Nawrocki signs, the agency will compile the first such report in September. Rzeczpospolita reports that the highest individual monthly invoices already reach 300 000–350 000 PLN, while about 625 civil‑law contracts exceed 100 000 PLN a month.
- Cabinet adopts bill linking doctor pay data to PESEL or licence number
- Health committee approves the bill
- Sejm passes the bill 253 – 0 – 177
“It is a marginal phenomenon”
Dr Michał Sutkowski, head of the College of Family Physicians, said roughly 600 doctors – 0.37 % of the profession – earn more than 100 000 PLN a month. “This is an anomaly, a pathology. The system must be changed,” he told Onet. Łódź Regional Medical Chamber president Łukasz Jasek added that the local market has seen no comparable cases; the median doctor’s income is about 20 000 PLN monthly, combining shifts and extra work. “Competition for staff is a daily reality, but rates are comparable and I know of no excessive pay cases in our region,” he said.
Half‑measures and the private‑sector blind spot
Virologist Prof. Włodzimierz Gut called the new law “a half‑measure, because we have two health systems – private and public.” He argued for full transparency, including private‑sector pay, noting that a public hospital’s debt is effectively socialised when a doctor earns disproportionate sums. Anaesthesiologist Damian Patecki disclosed on social media that he charges 300 PLN per hour for paediatric intensive care, normally working 50–80 hours a month in the public system and roughly 160 hours in total across both sectors. “I have one of the higher rates in Polish anaesthesiology because I work with severely ill children,” he wrote. Behind the single scandal, the data show a system where a handful of well‑connected or highly specialised clinicians can earn sums far beyond the norm, while the majority and their patients wait.
