Not only the Southern Hospital. In the case of Banach, were families harassed at the mortuary?

The University Clinical Center of the Medical University of Warsaw is one of the largest and most important medical facilities in Warsaw. It includes a clinical hospital at ul. Stefana Banacha 1, children’s hospital at ul. Żwirki i Wigury and the Infant Jesus Hospital at ul. Lindley.

Warsaw. Are the relatives of the deceased being harassed in the mortuary of three hospitals?

As Onet noted, there are 1,785 hospital beds in the facilities mentioned above, and in 2023, over 1.5 thousand beds were recorded there. deaths. This number certainly attracts the attention of funeral homes.

The portal’s journalists described the operation of the Nadzieja funeral home in particular detail. Its owner, Patrycja Kinaszczuk, has been managing the hospital cold storage facility located at Pawińskiego Street since February 2024. She founded her company two days before taking over the lease of this facility, which in itself raises some doubts.

Onet writes directly that the woman offers funeral services in the hospital. The management denies this and assures that there is no abuse, violation of the law or solicitation of the desperate families of deceased patients in the cold storage facility. The problem is that the reports collected by journalists contradict this.

“The family we are talking to says that the doctor from the palliative care unit, who informed them about the death of their loved one, immediately gave them a phone number to call. The phone was answered by Patrycja Kinaszczuk, the owner of a private facility that operates hospital cold rooms,” we read.

The document issued to the family contained the same telephone number and stamp of the Nadzieja Funeral Home. – It’s strange to me that the official document of the UCK WUM has the stamp of a private funeral home – the Onet interlocutor was outraged.

– This company is squeezing its services here. A moment ago, the gentleman who showed us my father’s body said that they could organize the entire funeral for us. He advertised that if we choose them, we will not have to pay for the cold storage, he added. The employee also allegedly emphasized that “it’s easiest with them, because they will take care of everything once and for all.”

Warsaw funeral pathologies. “The industry works like a regular gangster”

A retired hospital employee also spoke out about the practice. She emphasized that such things had not happened there for 25 years. – This started happening when Director Łukasik was in charge – she told journalists, pointing to Anna Łukasik, who managed the Southern Hospital until June this year.

The president of the Polish Funeral Association, Krzysztof Wolicki, said in an interview with Onet that he had intervened in this matter two years ago. – Whenever tenders for dissecting rooms and cold stores appeared in Warsaw, I started asking why they were giving it to private entrepreneurs – he recalled.

– Hospitals replied that there was economic freedom. And that they include in the contract that a given facility will not provide funeral services. In practice, he always does it, because that’s what he makes his living from. This is absurd, he said.

– Our association has been saying for years that a legal definition of a funeral director should be created. Such a person must have his own premises, caravans, cold stores and employ contract workers. This would eliminate approximately 60 percent from the market. illegal practices – he concluded.

A person from the industry also commented on the matter anonymously. — In all of Poland, the cemetery and funeral system functions the worst in Warsaw. Nothing has changed here since the skin hunters scandal. Big money and the lack of legal basis mean that the industry operates like an ordinary gangster – said the head of one of the funeral companies in an interview with the portal.