For patients · live
Emergency department queues.
How many people are waiting to see a doctor right now in each hospital emergency department (SOR), and whether the waiting time is within the standard. Below the map: how the emergency department queue works and what these data do not tell you.
Life in danger? Call 112 — don’t check the queues.
Map
Emergency department queues now.
–Loading queue data from the TOPSOR system…
Loading queue data…
Longest wait compared with the standard
- nobody waiting for a doctor–
- within the standard–
- over the standard–
- over twice the standard–
People waiting to see a doctor
- 1
- 10
- 40
- no waiting-time measurement–
Longest over the standard
The colour is the worst result in the yellow, green and blue categories: the time from the TOPSOR system compared with the standard. Times are average and approximate, and the portal cuts them off — “over 2 hours” against a 60-minute standard is certainly more than twice the standard. In the red category the portal always shows “immediately”, and in orange “under 10 minutes” — this is the text of the standard, not a measurement, so these categories do not affect the colour.
Each point stands where the emergency department is, according to coordinates from pacjent.gov.pl; in towns with several departments, the points are moved apart.
Source: pacjent.gov.pl, TOPSOR system data (administrator: NFZ), list of emergency departments as of 24 September 2026.
Standards: Regulation of the Minister of Health on hospital emergency departments, § 6(9), Dz.U. 2025 item 1646.
Boundaries: National Register of Boundaries (Państwowy Rejestr Granic), GUGiK, as of 14 October 2026.
Coastline: GISCO, country boundaries 1:1 million (2024), Eurostat, © EuroGeographics.
How it works
An emergency department queue is not a queue at a counter.
Your health decides the order, not your arrival time
When you arrive, you take a ticket. A nurse, a paramedic or a doctor carries out medical triage and assigns one of five urgency categories. A patient in a more serious condition will be seen before you, even if they arrived later.
State Emergency Medical Services Act, Art. 33a(1)–(2) · regulation on hospital emergency departments, § 6(7) and (9)
Each category has a maximum time to see a doctor
In the TOPSOR system and on the map, the categories are called priorities: from the highest (red) to the lowest (blue).
Longest permitted time to first contact with a doctor Red highest priority immediately Orange high priority up to 10 min Yellow medium priority up to 60 min Green low priority up to 120 min Blue lowest priority up to 240 min regulation on hospital emergency departments, § 6(9) · NIK, “System ratownictwa medycznego” (Emergency medical services system), p. 78, footnote 107
You have the right to know where you stand
After triage, staff are required to tell you your assigned category, the number of people ahead of you and the longest expected waiting time. The ticket machine should show your individual time after you scan the code on your ticket.
regulation on hospital emergency departments, § 6(10) · TOPSOR regulation, § 2 points 5–6
While you wait, your condition is reassessed
Staff reassess the condition of the people waiting at least every 90 minutes from the time they took their ticket, and the category may change. If you feel worse, say so straight away.
regulation on hospital emergency departments, § 6(14) · TOPSOR regulation, § 2 point 12(a)
Green and blue categories: the emergency department may send you to a clinic
An emergency department may refer a patient in the green or blue category to primary care, including night and holiday care. The rules are set out in the hospital’s internal regulations, posted at registration and published on the hospital’s website. In the ten hospitals audited by the Supreme Audit Office (NIK), such patients made up 44.6%, but staff rarely referred them elsewhere.
regulation on hospital emergency departments, § 6(11)–(12) · NIK, “System ratownictwa medycznego”, p. 78
The time on the screen is the category average, not your time
The screens in the emergency department and this map show the average expected time for the whole category. Yours may be shorter or longer — it depends on who arrives after you.
TOPSOR regulation, § 2 point 4 and § 3 point 1
When something goes wrong
If you think your rights have been violated — for example, nobody told you how long you would wait — see where to report it.
Data limitations
What these data do not tell you.
This is the time to see a doctor, not the whole stay
The map shows the wait for first contact with a doctor. The whole stay in the emergency department takes longer: tests, consultations, observation and waiting for results.
Ministry of Health, reply to MP’s question No. 3725 (3.08.2026)
The most urgent categories are not measured
For the red category the portal shows “immediately”, and for orange “under 10 minutes” — this is the text of the standard, not a measured time. In our review of all emergency departments on 17 October 2026, this was the case in all 14 and all 47 cases, respectively, in which someone in these categories was waiting. Public data therefore cannot show whether these two standards are being met.
zarobkilekarzy.pl measurement, pacjent.gov.pl, 17.10.2026, 01:28
Long times are cut off — although the exact ones exist
The portal shows at most “over 2 hours” in the yellow category, “over 4 hours” in green and “over 6 hours” in blue, so all that is known is that the standard has been exceeded. The Ministry knows the exact values: for the emergency department in Toruń it gave averages for the first half of 2026 to the second, for example 22 min 34 s in the yellow category.
zarobkilekarzy.pl measurement · Ministry of Health, reply to question No. 3725
A dash means zero or no data
When nobody is waiting in a category, the portal shows a dash. Missing data from a department looks the same — the two situations cannot be told apart.
One queue, two departments
Five pairs of emergency departments share the same number in the data. There is then a single queue, and it is not known which department it refers to — the map warns about this in the pop-up.
The history exists — in reports for the ministry
pacjent.gov.pl shows only the current state. The TOPSOR administrator, the National Health Fund (NFZ), sends the Ministry of Health monthly reports including the number of patients, average waiting times and the total length of stay in the emergency department.
TOPSOR regulation, § 5(1) point 16 · Ministry of Health, reply to question No. 3725
Since July 2026, no statistics “for the website”
Until July 2026, the regulation required the TOPSOR central server to make “current and historical” statistics available for the purposes of the website (our translation). After the amendment, the provision refers to statistics from historical data, but makes no reference to the website.
TOPSOR regulation, § 3 point 3 — wording of 2021 and after the amendment Dz.U. 2026 item 963
Times in the system are sometimes entered after the fact
NIK examined TOPSOR data from ten hospitals: in 77.7% of records, the time of the doctor’s attendance and the time of discharge were no more than a minute apart. The audit’s conclusion: TOPSOR did not provide reliable data on how long doctors took to attend to patients. The Ministry admits that for the most urgent patients, data are sometimes entered only after emergency procedures have been completed.
NIK, “System ratownictwa medycznego” (KSS.430.5.2026, June 2026), p. 76 · Ministry of Health, reply to question No. 3725
The map is a snapshot
At night and at peak times, the queues look completely different. We record measurements every 10 minutes — over a few weeks, they will build up a picture of the typical load on each emergency department.
Regulations and documents checked on .
Sources 7
Sejm of the Republic of Poland (ISAP) · Sejm of the Republic of Poland · Supreme Audit Office (NIK) · pacjent.gov.pl
- State Emergency Medical Services Act (ustawa o Państwowym Ratownictwie Medycznym), consolidated text Dz.U. 2026 item 141 (Art. 33a) (in Polish)
- Regulation of the Minister of Health on the system managing patient handling in hospital emergency departments (TOPSOR), Dz.U. 2021 item 1182 (in Polish)
- Regulation amending the TOPSOR regulation, Dz.U. 2026 item 963 (in Polish)
- Regulation of the Minister of Health on hospital emergency departments, consolidated text Dz.U. 2025 item 1646 (§ 6) (in Polish)
- Ministry of Health reply to MP’s question No. 3725 on the emergency department in Toruń (in Polish)
- Information on the audit results “System ratownictwa medycznego” (Emergency medical services system), KSS.430.5.2026 (in Polish)
- Szpitalny Oddział Ratunkowy — map and queues (TOPSOR data, administrator: NFZ) (in Polish)
We link only to publicly available documents and publications.