A clinic linked to the Medical University of Warsaw (WUM) is facing a fine of at least 250,000 zloty after an inspection confirmed that it “deliberately violated the rules” by providing coronavirus vaccines to celebrities who were not entitled to receive them.
Currently, vaccines are only supposed to be available to the so-called “zero group”, comprised mainly of staff at medical facilities. However, last week, it emerged that a number of famous actors, as well as a former prime minister and a television executive, had been given the vaccine at WUM’s clinic.
The rector of the university has today issued an apology for the incident, and the head of the clinic’s management board has been fired.
The celebrities were allegedly supposed to be part of a campaign to promote the vaccine among the public. Others who received the jab – such as the former prime minister, Leszek Miller – said they were entitled to receive it because they are patients of the hospital and the vaccines would otherwise have gone to waste.
This morning, the health minister, Adam Niedzielski, held a press conference to announce the initial findings of an inspection he ordered to be carried out at WUM’s clinic.
“We can say with certainty that the rules have been deliberately broken”, said Niedzielski. The irregularities uncovered already indicate that the clinic should receive a minimum fine of 250,000 zloty (€55,000). This could increase by the time the inspection is completed next week, added the minister.
It was discovered that the people who were vaccinated before they were entitled to be had been registered on 28 December. That was one day before the government issued a list of exceptions allowing people outside the “zero group” to be vaccinated (if, for example, vaccines would otherwise go to waste).
The clinic had therefore registered the vaccine recipients as non-medical staff working at the hospital, who would have been eligible to receive the jab, revealed Niedzielski.
What makes this “even worse”, said the minister, is that WUM has a total of 10,000 staff who are meant to be vaccinated. Some of these missed out because vaccines were given to those not entitled to them, he claimed.
The inspection has so far uncovered no evidence that the vaccinated celebrities were part of a promotional campaign. But it has found that the rector of WUM, Zbigniew Gaciong, knew from the start about the plan to vaccinate the stars.
Gaciong’s explanations about the episode have raised doubt. He initially claimed not to know the details of what had happened. But yesterday he admitted that he had seen some of the actors at the clinic, and Polsat News obtained a photo of him shaking hands with one of them.
On Saturday, the rector of the medical university where celebrities got privileged access to Covid vaccines said he did not know the details and "is not happy" about it
Today it emerged that he was present personally and shook hands with one of the actors https://t.co/MthxDrrnyI
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) January 4, 2021
Gaciong today issued an apology, saying that he is “extremely sorry about the situation”. He said that he has always sought to follow “the highest moral and ethical principles” and pointed out that he had not sought access to the vaccine for himself nor for his 91-year-old mother, who are “waiting for our turn” like everyone else.
WUM has appointed its own commission to investigate what happened. It has so far found that the vaccination programme was being organised under time pressure over the holiday period, with hundreds of doses needing to be administered before they expired at the end of the year.
It was therefore decided to offer them to people outside the “zero group”. However, the clinic did this in a “badly organised way”, with “no proper selection of people who were offered the vaccine”, found WUM’s commission, quoted by TOK FM.
The report also found that Gaciong had not exerted any pressure on the clinic, but that he had been presented with lists of people who were to be vaccinated. Yesterday, the head of the clinic’s management board, Ewa Trzepla, was dismissed from her position.
The health minister has, however, called for the authorities of WUM itself “not to avoid responsibility for what happened. “We cannot pretend that responsibility for this situation rests with just one person,” he said.
Separately, the health ministry today announced that 92,000 people have been vaccinated so far in Poland. Yesterday, the government official overseeing the vaccination rollout, Michał Dworczyk, said they aimed to vaccinate 2.9 million people (around 7.5% of the population) by the end of March.
Main image credit: Krystian Maj/KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
