A pioneer of heart transplants in Poland and a passionate European, Zbigniew Religa, 66, has turned his formidable energy to the political stage with a dream of building a modern Polish health service, AFP reports. Director of a big cardiological clinic on the outskirts of Warsaw, he is forging a new political party called "Centrum" that will compete in parliamentary elections that may be held next spring. Religa explains that frustration at the dilapidated state of the Polish health system pushed him into politics.
"To work as a doctor I have always had to battle with politicians who control the purse-strings of our faulty medical system. I decided to go into politics myself to improve it," he told AFP in an interview.
"I don't hide that our ambition is to get into parliament and to participate in the next government," Religa added.
His new party, Centrum, held its founding congress in April, and Religa aims to turn it into a "Christian-Democratic party open to Europe" allied to the group of conservative parties in the European Parliament, the European People's Party.
In its programme, Centrum says it "considers the presence of Poland in the European Union (news - web sites) as a natural road to development in keeping with Polish interests."
Now he is looking for allies among other pro-European forces, but also the Polish Peasants' Party (PSL), whose euro-scepticism has softened since EU entry this year.
How did Religa feel on May 1, when Poland became a member of the European Union, bringing the country firmly into the Western fold after half a century of Soviet domination until the late 1980s?
"I felt a huge joy. I was one of those who threw themselves heart and soul into the 'yes' campaign in the referendum last year. I even travelled across the country to convince people," he said.
Many Polish nurses and doctors are now moving to richer western EU countries for better pay than in Poland, where a specialist makes from 1,500 to 4,000 zlotys (340 to 915 euros) a month and a nurse from 800 to 1,500 zlotys.
Some in Poland have warned of a drain of qualified medical personnel, but Religa does not see the phenomenon as a threat.
"I am doubly delighted. First they will see other methods, new technologies, and I guarantee that most of them will come back to Poland, having benefited from their experience."
"And secondly, politicians in Poland will finally understand that medical professions should be paid decently as this is the only way to keep them," he said.
Religa had first thought of studying philosophy but his parents convinced me to choose a more practical profession and he ended up opting for medicine.
In the 1960s, he started his medical career under the guidance of Leon Manteuffel, himself a pioneer of heart surgery in then Communist Poland.
"Without him, I might have chosen an entirely different branch of medicine," Religa said smilingly.
His road towards the first heart transplant operation in Poland lasted many years. A key moment came during a trip in 1975 to Detroit when he observed at work the famous US heart surgeon Adrian Kantrovitz.
"I decided in 1984 to leave Warsaw, to run my own clinic in Zabrze, in Silesia. That's when we carried out the first heart transplant in Poland," he said.
Seven hundred Poles with heart transplants are alive today thanks to the path blazed by Religa, and five of his patients were operated on more than 17 years ago.