Senior Polish officials and the country’s Catholic church have become involved in a dispute over the fate of a Polish man living in the UK, who has already been taken off life support several times since having a cardiac arrest in November last year.
The wife and children of the man, known as “RS” and named in the Polish press as Sławomir, say it is in his best interests if life support is withdrawn, as does the hospital in Plymouth where he is being treated.
However, other members of his family, including his mother and sisters, claim that he is responsive and should be kept on life support. They also say that, as a Catholic, he would want his right to life to be upheld.
W sieci pojawiły się petycje ws. Polaka, który przebywa w stanie śpiączki w brytyjskim szpitalu w Plymouth. Jedną z nich przygotowała Jolanta Szpaczyńska, matka mężczyzny. W akcję zaangażował się również Instytut Ordo Iuris. https://t.co/rgrpd6HDXO
— PolskieRadio24.pl (@PR24_pl) January 19, 2021
Sławomir, a middle-aged man who has lived in England for more than a decade, suffered a 45-minute cardiac arrest on 6 November, which left him with serious and irreversible brain damage, reports Polsat.
On 15 December, the Court of Protection ruled that keeping him on life support was not in his best interests, saying that he should be provided with palliative care to retain the greatest possible dignity until his death.
The members of his family contesting the decision said that video footage proved Sławomir could breathe unaided and responded to stimuli. After their appeal to the European Court of Human Rights was rejected, the hospital renewed the procedure of ending life support, by withdrawing food and water.
The case has drawn widespread attention and criticism from Poland, with senior political politicians from the conservative ruling camp and church figures entering the fray.
Odbyłem dziś długą rozmowę z Ambasador Wielkiej Brytanii @AnnaClunes o sprawie naszego Rodaka, nie ukrywam, że rozmowa była trudna, rozmawiałem także z Ambasadorem RP w Londynie, jestem cały czas w kontakcie z polskimi konsulami, którzy są na miejscu w Plymouth
— Krzysztof Szczerski (@KSzczerski) January 18, 2021
On Monday, Krzysztof Szczerski, an aide to President Andrzej Duda, said that on the president’s request he had held a “long” and “difficult” discussion about the case with Anna Clunes, the British ambassador to Poland, and that he was in touch with Polish consuls in Plymouth.
Later the same day, a British court ruled that the hospital could prevent the Polish consul from access to Sławomir. In a statement, Poland’s foreign ministry said they were monitoring the situation and supporting the family.
On Tuesday, the speaker of the Sejm, Elżbieta Witek, also posted a picture showing a video call she had had on the matter with the ambassador, and reported that she had sent a letter to her British counterpart, Lindsay Hoyle.
Today it emerged that a deputy justice minister, Marcin Warchoł, has proposed that the foreign minister, Zbigniew Rau, appoint Sławomir as a Polish diplomat to protect him from court rulings in the UK. This morning, Rau tweeted that he was “taking all possible steps for him to obtain diplomatic status”.
W odniesieniu do sprawy obywatela polskiego, przebywającego w szpitalu w Plymouth w Wielkiej Brytanii informuję, że podejmuję wszelkie możliwe działania, aby został Mu nadany status dyplomatyczny.
— Zbigniew Rau (@RauZbigniew) January 20, 2021
The Catholic church has also become involved. Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, the head of Poland’s Catholic episcopate, has written to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, his counterpart in England and Wales, to intervene to prevent Sławomir’s life support from being removed.
Gądecki said that the Polish public were shocked by the British court’s decision, claiming that the withdrawal of food and water meant the man was “sentenced to death by starvation”.
Meanwhile, the rectors and vice-chancellors of the Catholic University of Lublin issued a statement saying that the hospital’s decision had “nothing to do with medicine”, and was instead the “deliberate killing of a seriously ill person.”
Ultraconservative legal group Ordo Iuris have also requested a provisional decision from the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, reports Do Rzeczy. Filip Furman from the Ordo Iuris Institute said “the law must protect fundamental values, such as human life”.
Meanwhile, Wojciech Maksymowicz, who served as a deputy minister until November, when he returned to work as a doctor at a Warsaw-based clinic that supports brain-damaged patients, told Interia that the clinic was ready to accept Sławomir as a patient, and could easily transport him to Poland.
The case echoes a dispute in 2018 over an infant British boy with a neurodegenerative disorder, Alfie Evans, whose parents contested the hospital’s decision to withdraw life support.
The case became a cause célèbre among conservatives in Poland, with former prime minister Beata Szydło and President Duda among those to give their views that the boy “must be saved” and a petition being launched to give Alfie Evans Polish citizenship.
Alfie Evans must be saved! His brave little body has proved again that the miracle of life can be stronger than death. Perhaps all that's needed is some good will on the part of decision makers. Alfie, we pray for you and your recovery!
— Andrzej Duda (@AndrzejDuda) April 25, 2018
Main image credit: Maciej Biedrzycki/Prezydent.pl
Juliette Bretan is a freelance journalist covering Polish and Eastern European current affairs and culture. Her work has featured on the BBC World Service, and in CityMetric, The Independent, Ozy, New Eastern Europe and Culture.pl.
