The wPolityce.pl reporter persuaded the Minister of Health, prof. Łukasz Szumowski for a short interview after he announced his resignation at a press conference. As the minister said, he agreed despite being exhausted, because he has been one of the regular readers of our portal for years. We talk in the minister’s office in the building at Miodowa Street in Warsaw.
wPolityce.pl: What thoughts will you leave this office with within a few or a dozen hours? Attachment? Sadness? sense of success or failure?
Professor Łukasz Szumowski: Certainly the sadness of parting with the fantastic team. We really managed to put together a team that has proven itself in a difficult moment when the truly dramatic COVID-19 crisis hit. Everyone did their best, 20 hours a day for many weeks, they did everything to save the country. I will be very sorry for that.
But on the other hand, these people stay, they continue to work, I am sure that we will keep in touch, because we got close, we probably became friends. Of course, I don’t have a sense of failure. Can you talk about success? The things that we did, not only related to the epidemic, I mentioned today at the press conference, but I leave the overall assessment humbly to others.
People are watching and not sure how to judge your resignation. On the one hand, there are indeed moments when a person needs to rest, that the family calls, that some stage is closed. On the other hand, it is a very high position that many dream of unsuccessfully, a career peak. How is it – to just walk away? How was it really? Why are you leaving? Wife ordered? Children?
Of course, it’s not like my wife tells me that my children are crying, it’s some kind of crisis. I am an adult, I do not act rashly, I knew what I was signing up for when I accepted the offer to become a minister.
There are three main reasons for my resignation, and it was an autonomous, personal decision.
First, I have been intending to quit for a long time. For a simple reason – I am a doctor who has been gaining knowledge and education for several years to treat people. I wanted to come back to that. I am aware that if I stayed now, it would be for the next few years and who knows if this return to the medical profession would still be possible. This choice became clearer: either a professional politician or a doctor. I chose the latter. And I know the perfect time to leave would never come.
Secondly, as for the Ministry of Health, I have been performing my function for a very long time, over two and a half years. It is one of the records in this extremely exhausting position, but it has consequences. I believe that this function, for the common good, requires a change from time to time, let new, full of strength people enter and work, sometimes fight, with this very demanding matter.
Thirdly, I have a wife with whom I used to see rarely during my ministry and four children: a daughter who goes to school, a son who goes to high school, a second son who has a high school diploma before him and the eldest who is after the first year. medicine. It all also requires attention, care and time. You can tell your children for a few months, a year or two that you don’t have time for them, because a meeting that is extremely important for the country has happened again … It’s true, these are important meetings, but it is impossible to omit important meetings forever and without consequences. family of moments.
Do you stay in public life?
Of course, I am going back to practicing as a doctor, but I remain a Member. I hope that I convinced the readers of wPolityce.pl with these arguments that there is no other bottom here. This is a natural change, agreed much earlier with President Jarosław Kaczyński and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
You have a lot of knowledge in the area of health care, but also experience in fighting coronavirus. Are we going to learn it from the beginning?
Of course not, I am and will be at the disposal of anyone who uses this knowledge, although not as a government official. I will not refuse to help anyone who wishes this.
At the press conference, you spoke a lot about whom you are grateful to, and you thanked many people. Who do you feel sorry for?
I have no regrets for anyone, I do not keep bad emotions in my heart. Even to those who formulated completely untrue and unfair opinions about decisions made at the time of the epidemic strike, at a time when everything was unknown. I know that if we had not bought the equipment, the same people would shout today that you had to buy at any price, because human life is at stake. It hurts, but this is politics – as President Jarosław Kaczyński put it, the most competitive area of life. Everyone should consider in conscience whether he is rightly attacking me. I assure you that we made all decisions with the best concern for the public good, never private.
Autumn is ahead of us and the question of how we should, as a society and state, relate to the possible increase in the number of coronavirus infections. More and more people are paying attention to the huge social, health and economic costs of social freezing. The Social Changes survey also shows that as many as 44 percent of Poles surveyed would be against another “lockdown”: Would we agree to a re-freezing of life, the so-called lockdown, even with the increase in infections? Interesting results
How, in your opinion, should we build the relationship between the necessary response to health risks and normal life so that the costs are not damaging?
It was, is and will be a razor dance. On the one hand, we have these costs and I can see it too – if we close the country again, many people will die of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, depression … The economy will collapse and the law on 6% of GDP for health will not be implemented, which is so long we fought. And modern technologies are expensive, and reimbursed drugs for rare diseases that we have fought recently cost a lot.
On the other hand, we have the experience of Italy and Spain, where we saw that total looseness, failure to follow any rules, can lead to drama, failure of the health service. This is a key category, the most important point. And yet, when assessing the situation in Poland, we must remember about it: there was never a shortage of ventilators, there was never a shortage of places in the hospital. And this is the best proof that the decisions made in this difficult period by me and my colleagues were justified, because in the end they saved the lives of many Poles, prevented a health care failure.
How do you balance it all?
It is a delicate matter in which the responsibility of Poles is decisive. If they behave wisely, follow the elementary recommendations, wear masks in public transport from September, the system will endure and we will be able to live normally. If this breaks down, restrictions will likely be an option under consideration again.
Your advice to the successor?
Talk to people. Nothing in politics can be achieved without conversation, persuasion, stubborn negotiation.
Interviewed by mk
–
