Abhiroop Das
Netflix’s ‘Anaesthesia,’ or ‘Znieczulenie’ in original Polish, takes us straight into the high-pressure world of neurosurgery, where every minute decision can have lasting consequences. We see an example of this play out with the story’s protagonist, Dawid Lazarz, who is left completely shaken after an operation gone wrong. Just when he gets fired and things seem entirely out of his reach, an opportunity arises, and he ends up joining Suwałki Specialist Hospital, a public facility. Despite this being a much smaller hospital than the one he worked in before, Lazarz wastes little time in turning it into his new home, even as he faces resistance from both internal and external sources. Directed by Łukasz Ostalski, the show gradually reveals more of Lazarz’s personal life and the complicated relationship he develops with Suwałki Specialist Hospital.
Suwałki Specialist is an Invented Setting, But the City Has a Real Public Hospital
The Suwałki Specialist Hospital is a fictional hospital created for the world of ‘Anaesthesia,’ by a writing team consisting of Dana Łukasińska, Bartosz Janiszewski, Marcin Ciastoń, and Beata Halastra. While Suwałki itself is a real city in northeastern Poland, it has its own real-life public hospital, independent of what we see on screen. Located at 60 Szpitalna Street, Dr. Ludwik Rydygier Provincial Hospital in Suwałki is registered with the National Health Fund of Poland and serves as the city’s main public health facility. The hospital we see on the show, then, is a completely fictional construct designed as an in-universe replacement for its real counterpart, allowing the writers to exercise maximum creative freedom.
The hospital scenes were actually filmed at Mazowiecki Szpital Specjalistyczny im. dr. Józefa Psarskiego in Ostrołęka, located at Aleja Jana Pawła II 120A. The production used both the building’s exterior and its interiors, even installing a temporary rooftop sign reading “Suwalski Szpital Specjalistyczny” in June of 2025. The hospital’s director, Paweł Natkowski, confirmed that the hospital was an integral part of the overall shoot, and it’s precisely this blend of the real and the fictional that makes the story pop.
Actor Leszek Lichota Trained With Surgical Simulators to Embody the Fictional Dawid Lazarz
The protagonist of the story, Dr. Dawid Lazarz, is a fictional character joining the ranks of Dr. Gregory House (from ‘House M.D.’) and Teacher Kim (from ‘Dr. Romantic ‘) in embodying the archetype of the skilled but unruly doctor. Much like them, he seems to be an exploration of certain concepts and ethical questions instead of a dramatized rendition of any real-life figure. In Lazarz’s case, those questions concern medical ethics, particularly the tension between the desire to save as many lives as possible, no matter the cost, and the need to adhere to certain rules of conduct to be an ideal doctor. In an interview with Twój Styl, actor Leszek Lichota described Łazarz as fiercely ambitious but also pointed out that these same abilities made him overconfident in his judgment, ultimately leading to crises.
While Lazarz’s overarching arc may be fictional, that doesn’t mean that Lichota didn’t go all in with his training. In the same interview, he revealed that he spent hours working with surgical simulators that resembled actual human heads. The exercises involved cutting through simulated skin and bone to reach the brain, giving him a better understanding of the precision required in the profession. The actor added that the experience helped him understand the responsibility doctors carry while working at the boundary between life and death. Given that ‘Anaesthesia’ also relied on a specialized team of consultants throughout the production, one can say that Lazarz is a fairly realistic depiction of a talented neurosurgeon, rather than being based on one.
Read More: Is Anaesthesia Based on a True Story?
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