Patients wait hours for ambulances as Polish hospitals struggle amid Covid surge

Poland’s healthcare system is facing increasing difficulties amid an ongoing surge in coronavirus infections. A number of hospitals have reported Covid wards reaching full capacity, while in some cities patients have been left waiting hours for ambulances.

The situation has raised concerns of a repeat of last year’s situation, when an autumn wave of the virus overwhelmed hospitals and left Poland with the European Union’s highest excess death rate. Many of those deaths resulted not directly from COVID-19, but from hospitals being unable to treat other patients.

“We’re already in a difficult situation as hospitals are full,” admitted the health minister, Adam Niedzielski, yesterday. As recently as last week, Niedzielski had said that the healthcare system was coping well with the fourth wave of the virus.

At a specially created temporary hospital in Radom, a city of 215,000 people 100 kilometres south of Warsaw, new COVID-19 patients are having to wait in an emergency room because all Covid bed have been filled.

“Our temporary hospital is full,” a spokeswoman told Puls Medycyny. She said that there was a “rotation” system in place, whereby patients were being placed in both the emergency room and isolation units of the nearby main hospital until Covid beds became available.

Similar reports have emerged in Opole, a city of 115,000 in southwest Poland. There the temporary hospital has also reached capacity, with all 136 of its Covid beds in use and no more space to add further ones.

Yet, as was also the case last year, it is not only equipment and space that are lacking, but also qualified medical personnel. “We are looking for medical staff all the time,” the spokeswoman for the University Clinical Hospital in Opole told TVN24.

Poland entered the pandemic with the EU’s lowest number of doctors in relation to population, as well as one of the lowest numbers of nurses. Its spending on healthcare as a proportion of GDP is also one of the bloc’s lowest. During the first quarter of 2021, a record number of doctors applied to leave Poland.

At a hospital in Płock, a city of 120,000 in central Poland, a new Covid unit with 28 beds was recently opened but has no doctors to run it, reports Polskie Radio RDC.

“We could launch another unit in the temporary hospital, but it all comes down to the lack of doctors and nurses. I have no people,” says the hospital’s director.

The hospital has tried to entice doctors from outside the city with offers of free hotel accommodation, food and an “attractive salary”, but there has still not been enough interest.

Last week, patients in the major cities of Warsaw, Wrocław, Kraków and Poznań were left with long waits for ambulances, reports RMF24. One person in the capital waited six hours for one to take to arrive.

Last week, a 79-year-old severely ill with COVID-19 spent nine hours in an ambulance as it travelled between and around two cities of Włocławek and Bydgoszcz – 100 kilometres apart – trying to find a hospital place for him, reported TVN24. In the town of Glogów, an 85-year-old spent several hours in an ambulance awaiting admission.

The latest data from Poland’s health ministry show that, across Poland as a whole, just over 21,000 out of 27,000 available Covid beds are occupied, while 1,825 out of 2,460 available ventilators are in use.

By comparison, at the start of November, only 7,204 Covid beds and 603 ventilators were occupied, notes Puls Medycyny.

Main image credit: Slawomir Kaminski / Agencja Gazeta

Agnieszka Wądołowska

Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna