Poland’s health minister said on Thursday that Prime Minister Marek Belka had declined his offer to step down after parliament rejected his health sector reform bill.

“I handed in my resignation, but the prime minister said he did not accept it,” Marek Balicki told a news conference.

He said he had offered to resign because he felt there was not sufficient backing from the ruling party for his efforts.

But he added he would continue in his job if he could count on full political backing along with a number of other conditions. He said Belka had agreed.

Belka’s minority government narrowly lost a vote on a bill reforming the finances of the heavily indebted public healthcare system, in part because of the absence of several deputies from the ruling Democratic Left Alliance (SLD).

The defeat, the latest in a string of setbacks in parliamentary votes, is another sign of that support for Belka’s minority government is eroding among its own backbenchers.