INFORMATION PORTAL OF THE MARSHAL'S OFFICE OF THE KUJAWSKO-POMORSKIE Region IN TORUŃ

Advanced world-class technology assisting our surgeons, by all accounts successful international cultural events, record investment in modernizing the road network, the satisfactory pace of implementation of our regional program and the start of the Marshal’s civic budget with a segment aimed at young people, promising lobbying in Brussels in the interest of Kujawsko-Pomorskie agriculture, the start of the reconstruction of Navra and the decision to begin the expansion of the Pomeranian Philharmonic – the ending year 2024 was a year of challenges and undoubted successes in Kujawsko-Pomorskie.

 

– It was not an easy year, but a fruitful one,” emphasizes Marshal Piotr Całbecki. – I am glad that we managed to finalize many important projects in it. Priority was given to pro-development ones, as well as to projects that already affect the quality of life of the region’s residents and the standards of health care, public education, security and social support.

 

Robot in the operating room

 

Two years after the first surgical robot arrived at the Oncology Center in Bydgoszcz, the clinic launched a surgical block equipped with three such machines. It thus became the first public hospital in the country to introduce this modern technology into daily clinical practice, and the only one with three such systems. The use of the robot means greater surgical precision, fewer complications, lower risk of cancer recurrence, shorter hospitalization, less need for drugs and blood, and less frequent need for follow-up treatment – which generally improves the efficiency of the health care system and increases the availability of treatment.

 

The Marshall Cancer Center, which has already performed more than a thousand surgical procedures using this technique and is currently embarking on a several-hundred-million-dollar expansion of its main building complex, currently has four specialized robotic surgery teams and nine experienced operators certified internationally in this field. Using robots, urologists (prostatectomy procedures), oncologic surgeons (bowel resection), gynecologists (hysterectomy due to endometrial cancer) and thoracic surgeons (removal of a lung lobe or part of it due to cancerous lesions) are currently operating here.

 

It is worth mentioning that the surgical robot is also at the disposal of another Marshal’s facility, Toruń’s Regional Complex Hospital, which has already performed nearly 400 procedures using this method

 

Culture: musical Bydgoszcz on top

Our cyclical cultural events have been a great success this year, consistently gaining international performers and audiences. The Bydgoszcz Music Festival, the Bydgoszcz Opera Festival (which last year hosted the legendary ballet group Les Ballets de Monte Carlo) and the Camerimage Festival in Toruń have an established brand and a loyal audience. This year, the top events were joined by the Kontakt Theater Festival, which brought to Toruń theater formations presenting the most interesting phenomena and trends of European stages, and the Karol Lipinski Violin Competition, which featured young virtuosos already promising to become world violin stars.

 

Speaking of culture, it’s impossible not to mention investments and investment plans in this area: the ongoing expansion of Opera Nova, the starting reconstruction of the palace and park complex in Nawra (which will house the future museum of landed gentry) and the expansion of the Pomeranian Philharmonic, for which funds were guaranteed in the provincial budget passed in December.

 

 

First class transport

 

The year 2024 was another year in which we built a user-friendly system of public public transportation, which has more and more passengers, mainly due to the development of the network of regional connections, seasonal trains to the Polish seaside and constant improvement in the standard of transportation. Last year, the regional government spent 220 million zlotys to finance rail transportation and 240 million zlotys to purchase modern electric trains, supplied by Bydgoszcz-based Pesa. We are also investing in bus transportation – last year we announced a tender for the purchase of 25 electric and 15 hybrid comfortable low-floor buses to operate regional intercity lines. The cost of this investment is 91 million zlotys, the maintenance of bus routes cost 24 million zlotys.

 

 

We invested half a billion zlotys last year in modernizing the road network. The result is more than 100 kilometers of roads put into service, the standard of which – solid sidewalk, safety solutions (traffic circles, sidewalks, lighting, traffic lights), clear horizontal markings, bicycle lanes – we can be satisfied with. We are working intensively on the bypass construction program. Last year’s successes include the completion of the Lubraniec bypass in the Włocławek district and advanced work on the construction of the Mogilno bypass closure, as well as the completion of the modernization of road No. 254 Brzoza-Barcin. The latter investment is an opening toward a future convenient connection of the regional road network with the national expressway network.

 

 

In the interest of Kujawsko-Pomorskie farmers and consumers

 

The adoption by the European Committee of the Regions, an important EU advisory institution, of an opinion prepared by Marshal Piotr Całbecki on the principles of functioning of the EU’s common agricultural policy after 2027, is an unquestionable success. The document is significant for the European debate on the issue and for the future of Polish and European agriculture. In it, the European regions call on the European Commission to verify the common agricultural policy – including the implementation of instruments to strictly control the transit of agricultural products from outside the European Union and, in general, to properly protect the European common agri-food market; to verify the assumptions of the European Green Deal with regard to agriculture; to establish tools to support the development of sustainable agriculture and the production of healthy food, the strengthening and promotion of local food systems and short food distribution chains; to transfer essential competencies in the creation of agricultural policy to the level of provinces.

 

The opinion is an opening of the European debate on our continent’s agriculture. Adoption of the solutions indicated in it will benefit the farmers of our region.

 

 

Regional program: 40 percent of euros in play

 

The pace of implementation of our regional program, European Funds for Kujawsko-Pomorskie 2021-2027, is encouraging. Nearly half a thousand signed agreements and contracting at the level of PLN 3 billion (41 percent of the allocation) should be considered more than satisfactory. This high level in a dozen months after the signing of the first funding agreement is related, among other things, to the FEdKP funds transferred to the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Development Fund (PLN 900 million) for low-interest and partially forgivable loans. The anticipated effect is development investments by small businesses and ventures in the fields of energy modernization, energy based on renewable sources and transformation towards a closed-loop economy. The first loans, with a pool of PLN 50 million – for small and medium-sized enterprises, dedicated primarily to start-ups, companies planning to implement innovative solutions or launch/increase exports – were launched at the end of the year.

 

 

Youth club in every municipality

 

The Marshall’s civic budget, implemented in the form of easy-to-account for grants and subsidies to support local initiatives, was launched in 2024. Twenty-seven local knitting groups (LAGs) from across the region have a total of 100 million euros at their disposal (sources are EU funds, including our regional program). PLN 70 million of this pot goes to projects aimed at children and young people for personal development, civic education and fitness building.

 

 

Beata Krzeminska

Spokesperson for the Marshal’s Office

 

January 8, 2025.