Long queues and thousands of free places in sanatoriums
While some people wait in several months of queues to go to a sanatorium as if it were salvation, others are fussy and either do not come at all or give up at the last minute.
Poland has 48 towns that have the status of health resorts. A health resort can be a town that has deposits of natural medicinal raw materials (mineral waters, mud, brine) and a climate with confirmed healing properties. The youngest health resort – because it is not yet a year old – is Lidzbark Warmiński.
Approximately 900,000 people use sanatoriums in Poland every year – the Central Statistical Office reported in 2024. On average, approximately 73,700 people go to sanatoriums every month. This number could be higher if it were not for the picky attitude, grimaces, calculation and irresponsibility of Poles.
The carelessness of patients and vacant beds in sanatoriums
Trips to sanatoriums have many reasons, and their main goal is rehabilitation and improvement of general health. The waiting time for such an opportunity is on average 9 months, but there are voivodeships where residents wait up to 11 months (Silesia).
Unfortunately, it is also a very popular way to spend holidays among seniors, which is why most people would like to go for a spa treatment in spring and summer, i.e. from April to June. September and October are also popular. Winter is not very popular among visitors, but sanatoriums operate all year round.
However, Poles’ approach to this form of self-recovery is increasingly carefree: they either do not cancel their arrival at all, or do it at the last minute. This means that despite long queues, there are thousands of free beds in sanatoriums.
– Patients return referrals because they have made an appointment for a dental implant, because they are planning a weekend trip to visit their family, because they receive First Communion, because of unfavorable weather conditions, because Ukraine is 300 km away – described the situation by Dr. Jacek Gąsiorowski, provincial consultant for physical medicine from Lower Silesia. The second problem lies with the National Health Fund – it does not send referrals to places already contracted on time.
Longer waits for referrals to a sanatorium
During the March meeting of the Parliamentary Team for Spa Treatment, the industry once again tried to do something about this problem. It is true that data from the National Health Fund indicate that the implementation of referrals in 2025 was 98.6%, and there were 6,145 unfulfilled referrals, but this only happened because NFZ employees made 629,000. booking operations – by over 190 thousand more than would result from the normal allocation.
In the first two months of 2026, the implementation level dropped to approximately 85%, and NFZ employees completed 76,000. booking operations with only 56,000 referrals ending in February.
MPs see salvation in artificial intelligence, the introduction of the “last minute” option and in punishing picky patients with a longer waiting period before they can apply for another referral.
