Jan Grabiec, head of the Prime Minister's Office and a senior party figure, said on Thursday that the case must be fully explained.
He was speaking to reporters in the Sejm, the lower house of Poland’s parliament.
The case centers on Dawid Kacprzyk, a doctor who coordinated the emergency department at Warsaw's Południowy Hospital and served as a KO councilor in the city’s Ursus district.
Media reports say Kacprzyk earned around PLN 1.6 million (EUR 380,000, USD 440,000) last year while undergoing specialist training in anesthesiology.
Reports also alleged that KO politicians were treated at his department without waiting their turn.
Kacprzyk resigned from the KO on Monday and stepped down on Thursday as an Ursus district councilor.
He has also returned part of the money paid to him by the hospital.
Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski said on Thursday that the entire management board of Południowy Hospital had been dismissed.
“All cards on the table. That is how things are done in a mature state, everything is explained and mistakes are corrected, instead of hiding one’s head under the table and pretending nothing happened,” Grabiec said.
He added that anyone in public life who had exceeded their authority should be held responsible.
Asked whether Warsaw Deputy Mayor Renata Kaznowska, who oversees healthcare in the city, should face consequences, Grabiec said ongoing inspections would show who was responsible.
“I do not know who bears responsibility. I think the inspections will very clearly indicate, personally, the responsibility of individual people, in the hospital itself, in owner supervision, in the National Health Fund, and in the Health Ministry,” he said.
The National Health Fund (NFZ) finances public health care in Poland and contracts medical services using public money.
Grabiec rejected claims that the scandal was directly connected with the KO, the largest party in Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing camp.
“This scandal has nothing to do with the Civic Coalition, except that the man who engaged in these practices happened to be a KO councilor. Of course, for that reason we will hold it to account even more strictly,” he said.
He said attempts to help friends or acquaintances bypass medical queues were unacceptable, regardless of political affiliation.
“This way of bypassing the queue is unacceptable,” Grabiec said. He added that the problem was linked to “a very reprehensible phenomenon” in Poland’s healthcare system rather than to any one party.
Grabiec also rejected calls for consequences against Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński, who heads the KO’s Warsaw structures.
The left-wing Razem party has called for Kierwiński’s resignation, arguing that he should take political responsibility for the case.
“Minister Kierwiński is not connected with this case in any way. Mr. Kacprzyk was not his associate,” Grabiec said.
He described the attempt to link Kierwiński to the scandal as adding a political charge to a real problem.
Opposition politicians, especially from the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, have demanded that the KO be held politically responsible.
PiS displayed a board in parliament showing images of Kacprzyk, Kierwiński and several KO politicians who, it said, had received medical help at Południowy Hospital.
Some KO politicians named in the public discussion have denied being treated there.
KO lawmaker Katarzyna Piekarska said on Thursday that claims she had received treatment at the hospital were false.
“This is a lie being repeated on X. I am receiving oncology treatment in Olsztyn,” she said. Piekarska later fainted in the Sejm chamber.
Senate Speaker Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska also said on Thursday that she had never been treated at Południowy Hospital.
She said the case must be explained reliably and on the basis of truth, rather than false claims.
KO politicians have privately described the case as a serious political problem. One said the party was “in a bind” because the allegations concerned access to healthcare, a sensitive issue for voters in a country where waiting times for public medical services are often long.
Tusk said on Wednesday that any KO politician accused of using easier access to medical services would have to explain publicly what happened.
"If it turns out that ethical standards were violated, there will be political accountability," he said. "If the law was broken, prosecutors will deal with it."
He said he expected precise information from the Warsaw municipal government, which owns the hospital.
He also said he had asked the Supreme Audit Office (NIK), Poland’s top state audit body, to check the use of public funds in healthcare.
Asked whether there would be political consequences for Kierwiński, Tusk said no.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk speaks to reporters in Warsaw on Wednesday, June 17, 2026. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka
The Warsaw Regional Prosecutor’s Office began preliminary checks on Wednesday into possible exposure of people to danger and certification of false information.
Inspections by Warsaw City Hall and the National Health Fund are underway at Południowy Hospital.
Trzaskowski said the audit would also cover emergency departments in all city-run hospitals.
Source: IAR, PAP