THE FOUNDER

The Company was established by Damian Płoszczyński. Several reasons lead him to start such a difficult and uncertain project. The first reason was very personal. After his comeback to Poland, he had a serious car accident. He was admitted to hospital in such a poor condition that it was doubtful whether he would survive. He was very badly treated in this hospital and staying there was an affront to his dignity. He promised then to himself and to the Providence that he would build his own, private hospital, should he recover from the injury. It would be a hospital where the patient is provided with humane, professional and cordial care in a comfortable and homely interior.

The second reason: Damian Płoszczyński was a visionary. Like in a chess play, his favourite entertainment, he was able to think ahead in real life and in business. He understood market and social transformation, he knew where it led to. He was familiar with the German healthcare system and he was sure that also in the new Poland – sooner or later – medical service market would change. The entire civilised world heads toward development of private medical insurances and it means development of private health services.

The third reason was his family. His son, Marek Płoszczyński, graduated from a medical faculty but could not find for himself a place in Poland. At that time doctors in Poland had to cope not only with poor earnings but also with dilemmas about which Hippocrates had had no idea. Already during his first work in a hospital, where there was only one artificial kidney urgently awaited by several tens of patients, the son of Damian Płoszczyński had to take an inhumane decision: whom to treat with the machine? Whom to select? Why this patient and not the other? Each choice was a bad one as it condemned other patients to suffering. Therefore Marek Płoszczyński left to Austria. He worked there in the huge pharmaceutical concern – Boehringer Ingelheim, where he carried out research on interferon, a human protein that helps to conquer cancer. He used his medical knowledge with benefit but his father wanted him in Poland. The clinic built by Damian Płoszczyński was a good enticement to make his son think about comeback, as his medical education could be better used there. And this finally happened.

BUILDING

The Center was opened in 1994. After 4 (instead of 2) years of construction works, after a hard struggle with offices. It was a long and bumpy road, beset with traps. Actually it was rather a steep staircase – steep and high as a ladder into the sky. Everything was difficult at that time. Firstly, a suitable ground should have been bought. The square situated just at the junction of Wałbrzyska and Puławska streets seemed to the Districts Authorities a perfect location for an entertainment center. However Mister Płoszczyński managed to persuade and even to raise enthusiasm of the Governor of the Mokotów District. The first private hospital in Poland! – Damian Płoszczyński was presenting a pioneering vision. – It would be us who will blaze the trail! – It seemed that both men would pass to history. And perhaps they will – to the history of Polish healthcare system.

He had to use his gift of persuasion many times. As a matter of fact, the Center would not have been built if Damian Płoszczyński had not had this excellent ability which he developed during the War and several post-war years, very difficult for him. Smoothing the way among the jungle of regulations, obtaining permissions and certificates meant not only hundreds of kilometres made between different offices and an endless need to persuade office workers. Every now and then a problem of formal and medical nature emerged that could not be solved by any clerk – however friendly – because both relevant regulations and practice precedents were missing. The communist regime did not anticipate any private hospitals.

Damian Płoszczyński contracted a substantial loan: a million dollar one. The construction devoured resources at such a pace that just before completion of construction works both money and further borrowing power of the founder run short. If not for financial help of Damian Płoszczyński’s son – Marek – the final success would not be possible.

THE OPENING

It was Monday, the 4th May 1994. To open his own company, Damian Płoszczyński came with a borrowed car. His brand new car had been stolen from the parking place just at the clinic entrance the day before. The car had not been insured against theft; Damian Płoszczyński had no head for such a trivial thing. Everything was there as it should be: a pompous atmosphere, champagne and flowers, the press, radio and television, VIPs, family and friends. A banner above the entrance heralded the opening.

After the ceremony the Center became deserted. – There were only three of us, doctors, that day – says Doctor Grażyna Czarnecka who still works at Damian. – We sat in our consulting rooms and waited for patients. Hours were passing and nobody was coming. We admitted two, maybe three patients in total.

Damian Płoszczyński placed himself on a sofa vis a vis the entrance and spent the entire day sitting there. It became his habit later on: he would sit on the sofa and look at people entering and leaving the clinic.

MEDICAL DISCIPLINE

At week-ends, instead to relax, Płoszczyński – the senior organised meetings with doctors. They were coming with their laptops and ideas, knowledge and experience. They would spend days on discussing issues related to patient safety and comfort, and to hospital procedures. Among participants of these discussions there were: Professor Andrzej Kukwa (an otolaryngologist), Professor Andrzej Borówka (an urologist), Professor Roman Krajewski (a neurosurgeon) and Doctor Jerzy Potocki (a plastic surgeon) – the two latter still work in the Center.

And again, Damian Płoszczyński had to think forward. He admitted at the very beginning that the company would grow out as it was impossible to build everything at one go. But some solutions concerning the contact point of architecture and medicine had to be designed and implemented in advance. Consultations with doctors and architects went for months and years. There were no standards to follow – public hospitals are so large that their functional organisation needs no effort at all. Thanks to forward-looking solutions, the clinic could develop: as soon as the end of the year 1994 a small hospital department was opened and in the following year, on the next floor – a full-profile hospital. In the year 1996 obstetrics department was joined to the complex.

THE FATHER AND THE SON

Since the very beginning Damian Płoszczyński engaged the son in development and running of the company. Initially – every second weekend as at that time Marek Płoszczyński could not come to Warsaw more frequently. He could not give up his job in Austria because he took out loans in Austrian banks to support his father. Working in two countries, on two posts – it was a 4-year deadly effort before Marek Płoszczyński come back to Poland to stay here and to take over the company.

Marek Płoszczyński participated in all “brainstorms” at the construction stage and later on. – What was the most fascinating in this “adventure”, it was a creation of everything from scratch – says Marek Płoszczyński. – You could not refer to any model as there were no precedents. Exceptional creativity was necessary to invent things from nothing. This creativity was useful literally everywhere. Whoever you would talk to – be it an official or a construction master - nobody understood, what you are talking about. At that time nobody could figure out paintings on the walls and gentle background music in the waiting room of a private clinic.
– Creativity often had to replace money – adds Marek Płoszczyński. – When I asked an advertising agency to prepare a promotion campaign for us, they calculated the price of this project to be PLN 500,000. And I could spend for this purpose only 50,000. So, without any help, we had to take difficult decisions: is it a good idea to have an advertisement on TV or, with the same money, would it be more reasonable to organise a poster campaign? But what posters? How do such things?

When the clinic started to work “at full speed” – a share of responsibilities emerged gradually. The father was responsible for “creation of good atmosphere”, he gave ear to both employees and patients, gave advice, soothed conflicts – as a householder. The son was a “tyrant” director, ruling the company with an iron hand. Damian Płoszczyński was sometimes a mediator – a successful one – between his son and an employee.
– At the beginning is was really very hard to “run this business” – says Marek Płoszczyński. – We had not enough money to buy diagnostic and surgical equipment. So at first we rented it and later we bought it in leasing. Now we have our own, most up-to-date machines and instruments and we make them accessible to other hospitals in the city. The company is growing out.

THE CLINIC - MY LOVE OR THE LAST CHESS GAME

Damian Płoszczyński put his heart and soul in creation of his medical center. He supervised the works from dawn to dusk, he could not stop talking and thinking about the clinic. Nothing could be haphazard, the name of the clinic inclusive: it should refer to a meaningful symbol. And then somebody realised that the name of the owner of the clinic is at the same time the name of the patron of surgeons, apothecaries and medicine students. The family reached to the sources: Damian – the patron had a twin brother – Kosma. They lived in the third century AC and came from Arabia. They studied medicine and afterwards they wandered across Minor Asia and treated diseased people. They head unusual healing powers: they made paralytics walk, they brought back the eyesight to the blind. The most interesting fact is that Damian was also chosen to be the patron of the diseased. As Damian took under his protection both doctors and patients – you could not find a better name for a medical center.

However a moment came when the Fate called Damian Płoszczyński in: he fell ill and the verdict was irreversible. During his illness, most of the time he spent in his own hospital – this time cared for in a way that he would dream of. He did not give up this chess game played with God to the very end: every day he would ask for… business documents to be brought to his bed. He cared for his clinic to the end of his life. He got off a moving train...