Poland sacked a deputy health minister on Thursday after he told the European Union its plan to guarantee good health for everyone was communist propaganda and some people simply do not want to be healthy.
The health ministry said deputy minister Rafal Nizankowski wrote in a letter to the EU’s executive last month its plan was wrong since “some do not want to be in good health and simply need to be sick to play their role in society.”
The EU’s recent initiative to boost health care standards “smelled like a communist slogan,” Nizankowski added.
PAP news agency quoted Prime Minister Marek Belka as saying he has dismissed Nizankowski for an “embarrassing” letter.
Poland, the largest formerly communist state in the European Union, is struggling to overhaul its health sector, which has been through several reforms without results.