1,358 facilitiesDoctors’ pay monitoring browser (in Polish)
Watchdog Polska asked 1,358 public facilities about doctors’ pay. See which of them disclosed the data, which refused and which did not reply at all.
Figures
Data.
We compile public spending, pay and patients’ access to care. There is one rule: no figure without a source. We label each one as exact or as an estimate, and we do not mix the two.
1,358 facilitiesHow to read these data
- 01.
A source for every figure We link only to publicly available documents, data and replies to freedom-of-information requests.
- 02.
An estimate is not a fact We label every figure as exact or estimated. We leave empty fields empty — we do not guess.
- 03.
Mechanisms, not names We describe how the system works. We do not point to individual doctors and do not publish personal data.
01
Pay
From a resident’s salary to the top 1% — employment, contracts, rates and records, from documents.
4 datasets
- Charts
Distribution of doctors’ pay in Poland
AOTMiT medians by form of employment, the statutory minimum for salaried doctors and payments above PLN 100,000 a month. Each of these amounts is a payment from one facility — nobody adds up the total earnings of one person.25,595PLN — median of a single specialist contract - Search
Doctors’ pay monitoring browser (in Polish)
Watchdog Polska asked 1,358 public facilities about doctors’ pay. See which of them disclosed the data, which refused and which did not reply at all.1,358facilities - Table
Doctors’ pay from disclosed payroll lists
In the Watchdog Polska monitoring, 97 facilities sent full annual payroll lists of their doctors — 11,113 payroll entries for 2025. The median is about PLN 180,000 a year, and 13% of the amounts exceed half a million, although each is a payment from only one facility.11,113payroll entries from 97 facilities - Ranking
Record payments to doctors in Poland
The highest disclosed payments to doctors from public money: from PLN 316 thousand for a month under a single contract to almost PLN 3 million for a year. Each amount is what one facility paid for one period, not a person’s total earnings.316,079PLN — the highest monthly contract in the public listing
02
Public money
The NFZ budget, hospital debt and what the patient in the queue gets for that money.
2 datasets
- Charts
The NFZ budget and waiting lists, year by year
Costs in the financial plan of the National Health Fund (NFZ) have more than tripled since 2015, and roughly doubled after inflation. The average waiting time for a service grew by about 43% over the same period. For 2026 the Fund plans PLN 227.4 billion in costs and a PLN 33.6 billion subsidy from the state budget.×2in real terms since 2015 - Charts
Hospital debt in Poland: salaries paid on credit
Public hospitals owe more than PLN 40 billion, and their debt is growing at the fastest rate in more than twenty years. It goes mainly on current spending, above all salaries — pay funded on credit, which we repay with public money.40.8PLN billion of debt
03
The road to the profession
The LEK exam, residency and 29 specialties — pay, places and competition.
1 dataset
04
Workforce and comparisons
Nurses, paramedics, diagnosticians — and Poland next to Czechia, Germany and Austria.
2 datasets
- Table
Other medical professions: pay scale and numbers
Nurses, midwives, paramedics, laboratory diagnosticians, physiotherapists, pharmacists. Their salaried pay is set by a single statutory scale — unlike doctors’ contracts, this part of pay is known to the last zloty.5.9nurses per 1,000 population - Comparison
Doctors’ pay: Poland compared with its neighbours
How Czechia, Germany, Austria and Sweden pay their doctors and what is publicly known about that pay. We compare pay with a single OECD measure: the ratio to the average wage in each country.2.9times the average wage — a salaried specialist in Poland (OECD)
Tools
Check for yourself.
Interactive tools based on open data. No login, no collection of answers.
Monitoring
Doctors’ pay monitoring
1,358 public facilities. Who disclosed data on doctors’ pay, who refused, who stayed silent.
Live
Emergency department queues
A map of Polish emergency departments, refreshed every 10 minutes: how many wait for a doctor and whether within the standard. Triage and data limits.
To start with
Eight figures that show the scale.
The strongest data from across the site. Click any of them to go deeper — with the full breakdown and sources.
300,000PLN / day
A neurosurgeon’s record day (an allegation — the case is ongoing).
Record payments to doctors in Poland
316,079PLN / month
The highest contract — in a region whose hospitals owe PLN 1.4 billion.
Record payments to doctors in Poland
0registers
Public registers that add up the payments to one doctor. This is the heart of the problem.
Draft amendment to Article 27a (in Polish)
~73%on contracts
Specialists are paid under civil-law contracts — and nobody adds up the payments to one person.
Contract or employment: this decides what can be seen
4.2months
The average wait for a specialist appointment (WHC Barometer 2025), although NFZ costs in the plan have doubled in real terms since 2015.
The NFZ budget and waiting lists, year by year
40.8PLN bn
Debt of public hospitals in mid-2026 — it goes mainly on wages paid “on credit”.
Hospital debt in Poland: salaries paid on credit
2.15PLN m / year
The highest annual income from work of a doctor-councillor in the asset declarations for 2025 that we checked.
Doctor-councillors: annual income public by law
5.9nurses / 1,000
Nurses per 1,000 population — against 9.2 on average in the OECD.
Other medical professions: pay scale and numbers
We do not publish figures “from memory”. Until a field has a source, it stays marked “—”.
Editorial position
Public amounts, protected names.
We call on the state to publish, every quarter, the total pay of each person working in facilities with a National Health Fund (NFZ) contract — summed across all their workplaces, under a permanent identifier instead of a name.