What to do if you get sick or injured in Poland

If someone’s life or health is in danger, call 112 (the European emergency number) or 999 (ambulance). Calls to both numbers are free.

Emergency operators in Poland must speak at least one foreign language, and English is the most common one. It still helps to know your exact address or to share your location, and to say “ambulans” or “karetka” (ambulance).

In the mountains, call mountain rescue: 985 or +48 601 100 300.

A hospital emergency department is called SOR (Szpitalny Oddział Ratunkowy). It is for situations that threaten life or health: serious injuries, chest pain, breathing problems, loss of consciousness. Polish health authorities ask patients not to go there with a cold or an upset stomach.

For a sudden illness outside working hours there is out-of-hours care (nocna i świąteczna opieka zdrowotna, NiŚOZ). It is open:

• from 6 pm to 8 am on working days,
• 24 hours a day on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.

You do not need an appointment or a referral, and you can go to the nearest clinic, not the one for your district. The doctors there do not issue repeat prescriptions for long-term medication.

The 24-hour National Health Fund (NFZ) helpline 800 190 590 tells you where the nearest hospital, out-of-hours clinic or on-duty pharmacy is.

Treatment in Poland is free only for people insured with the Polish National Health Fund (NFZ) and, for necessary care in public facilities, for holders of a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) or a UK GHIC. Other visitors pay for treatment themselves or claim it from their travel insurance.

In an emergency, a hospital must help you without delay, even before it checks how you are insured. If you have an EHIC but did not have it with you, you can show it within 14 days of the start of treatment, or within 7 days after you leave a hospital ward. Otherwise the hospital charges you for the treatment. If you show the EHIC later, but no more than a year after these deadlines, the hospital must cancel the charge or refund what you paid.

The EHIC does not cover private clinics, rescue or transport back to your country. Travel insurance covers these within its sums insured.

Medicines marked as prescription-only need a prescription in Poland. In an urgent situation a pharmacist can issue a pharmacy prescription for the smallest pack of a prescription medicine, at full price, but not for psychotropic or narcotic drugs.

Electronic prescriptions from some EU countries can be dispensed in Polish pharmacies, always at full price. Ask the pharmacist whether your country is covered.

Call the insurer’s Assistance Centre before you pay for treatment yourself. The phone number is on your policy. With Go Safe by TU Europa, the Assistance Centre approves the costs and the insurer pays the hospital directly; if the hospital does not accept direct payment, the insurer refunds what you paid.

If you could not call because of circumstances beyond your control, inform the Assistance Centre within 5 days of it becoming possible.

Keep these documents:

• the medical information sheet from the hospital or emergency department (karta informacyjna),
• original bills, invoices and pharmacy receipts,
• the claim number given by the Assistance Centre,
• a police report, if something was stolen.