In Poland, number of urgent patients in queues rises to 980,000 — Interia
In Poland, 980,000 patients with urgent referrals were waiting in queues for medical services in the second quarter of 2026 — 62,800 more than in the first quarter and 180,000 more than a year earlier. This was reported by Interia, citing a report on the activities of Poland’s National Health Fund, which, according to the outlet, was obtained by the newspaper Rzeczpospolita.
The report analyzed queues for more than 200 types of medical services. In particular, 145,300 patients with urgent referrals were waiting for magnetic resonance imaging in the second quarter. This was 35,000 more than in the previous quarter and 38,300 more year-on-year.
Queues for MRI and physiotherapy
The median waiting time for magnetic resonance imaging for urgent patients was 33 days — four days longer than in the second quarter of 2025. The highest numbers of such patients were recorded in the Silesian, Lesser Poland and Masovian voivodeships. The number of patients in stable condition waiting for this examination also increased.
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The number of both urgent and stable patients in queues for computed tomography, gastroscopy and colonoscopy increased. The most difficult situation was in outpatient physiotherapy: around 500,000 people were in the queue, 80,000 more than in the same period of 2025. The median waiting time for patients with urgent referrals reached 115 days, increasing by 14 days over the year.
Stable figures for hospitals
At the same time, the number of patients in stable condition waiting for hospitalization remained at approximately 640,000 people. The queue for specialist consultations within outpatient specialized care decreased slightly: from 3.63 million people in the second quarter of 2025 to 3.58 million in the second quarter of 2026.
Experts cited by Rzeczpospolita suggested that the increase in the number of urgent patients may be linked to doctors more often issuing urgent referrals because of long waits for certain examinations.
