Łukasz Szumowski

Łukasz Szumowski (2019)

Łukasz Szumowski (born June 3, 1972 in Warsaw ) is a Polish politician without a party . From January 2018, he was Minister of Health in the Morawiecki I and Morawiecki II Cabinets . He resigned from this office on August 18, 2020.

Life

Szumowski studied medicine in Warsaw and is a doctor . At the age of 44 he became a professor of heart medicine . After graduating, he worked with his current wife, an anesthetist , at Mother Teresa in Calcutta . He has four children with his wife.

In the spring of 2020, Szumowski received high praise for his handling of the COVID-19 crisis in Poland. The country had comparatively low numbers of infections and deaths, also thanks to an early lockdown, which it was largely responsible for. At times Szumowski was the most popular politician in Poland.

However, the situation changed in the weeks before his resignation. Experts have long drawn attention to the fact that hospitals are understaffed, obsolete and poorly equipped. On the day of his resignation, 16,000 people with COVID-19 were registered in Poland. Szumowski was primarily charged with purchasing ineffective medical products . His ministry bought 130,000 masks from a ski instructor friend and through the mediation of his brother for a price of over one million euros. According to research by the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza , the ministry paid eight times the market value for the masks, but they still lacked the necessary quality certificates. Ventilators ordered by Szumowski's ministry in East Asia never arrived. The company OncoArendi Therapeutics, which mainly belongs to Szumowski's brother Marcin, has, according to Gazeta Wyborcza , been awarded projects worth around 67 million euros for researching new drugs in recent years. According to this description, the projects were largely financed with EU funds and were mainly approved by ministries or affiliated research institutions, in which Łukasz Szumowski worked first as Vice Minister of Research and then as Minister of Health. However, the company did not bring a single drug to market.

On August 18, 2020, Szumowski announced his resignation. He had already planned to return to his job in January or February, but remained in office because of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, he had agreed with the head of government to complete the digitization of the Polish health care system. He continues to exercise his parliamentary mandate.

Web links

Commons : Łukasz Szumowski  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Florian Hassel: A dozen protective masks. Süddeutsche Zeitung, accessed on March 26, 2020 . 
2. ^ Jan Puhl: Coronavirus: Eastern Europe seals itself off. Spiegel Online, accessed March 26, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Britta Sandberg, Jan Puhl, Walter Mayr: Corona and the health ministers: Suddenly hero in the front row. Spiegel Online, March 30, 2020, accessed May 15, 2020 . 
4. ^ Gerhard Gnauck: Poland's health minister resigns. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, accessed on August 18, 2020 . 
5. ^ Poland's Health Minister resigns amid medical procurement allegations. Euronews, accessed on August 19, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Lidia Kurasinska: Poland's Health Minister Resigns Amid Fears Of Second Coronavirus Wave. Forbes, accessed August 19, 2020 . 
7. ↑ ^{a b} Florian Hassel: The Minister of Health who bought the wrong masks. Süddeutsche Zeitung, accessed on August 18, 2020 . 
8. ↑ Polish minister quits after ventilators go missing. The Times, accessed August 19, 2020 . 
9. ↑ Łukasz Szumowski podał się do dymisji. Przedstawił powody. Polsat News, accessed August 18, 2020 (Polish).