Two independent analyses, the Polsat News Ujawnia investigation and data from the civic organisation Watchdog Polska, show that hundreds of doctors earn over one million złoty a year in hospitals. Health Minister Jolanta Sobierańska-Grenda argued on Monday, 26 October, that this confirms the sense of the pay transparency rules.
Watchdog Polska sent 1,358 public information requests to medical facilities about doctors’ pay for 2025. According to the organisation, 161 entities responded, or 12 percent. Of the rest, roughly half refused and the other half did not respond at all. Hospitals cited, among other things, GDPR, privacy protection and trade secrets. Some demanded fees for preparing the data, in one case PLN 3,000.
What the data shows
From the facilities that responded, Watchdog collected 18,647 records with amounts. According to its compilation, the median single contract or agreement was PLN 172,594, and the average exceeded PLN 239,000. The organisation’s president, Szymon Osowski, told Interia that every eighth amount is at least half a million złoty, and 248 records exceed one million. Such amounts appear in 56 facilities, and the highest entry is PLN 2,979,868. One person may have several contracts, so the records do not necessarily mean that many different doctors.
Meanwhile, the Polsat News Ujawnia report „The Art of Silence” describes the results of queries sent to 590 facilities about the five highest-earning doctors. As co-author Jacek Smaruj told Interia, in at least 20 hospitals every doctor in the top five earns over one million złoty a year. Thirteen facilities reported that their best-paid medics receive PLN 2–3 million. The record holder from Lublin reportedly earned PLN 2,953,526.89.
The scale of responses differs between reports. Interia writes about some 200 entities that responded to Polsat News, while the portal Alert Medyczny and WP mention only 19 full responses containing named data, working hours and positions.
What the health minister says
Asked by Polsat News during the Forum Rynku Zdrowia (Health Market Forum), Jolanta Sobierańska-Grenda referred to the law that took effect on 1 July. It requires hospitals with a contract with the National Health Fund (NFZ) to report salaries. According to the minister, this will show a „real picture of pay”. She added that she also wants transparency in tenders for medical services, so that everyone can check on what terms doctors using public money work.
The minister also pointed to the planned cap of PLN 240 gross per hour. She announced a recommendation for a ceiling on the share of salaries in a hospital’s budget. In the summer she had spoken of 60 percent, adding that this depends on the level of the facility. A rate cap requires a statutory change, so it is not yet in force.
What it means
The issue concerns money from the public system, from which hospitals settle accounts with the NFZ. For now, full data does not exist: most facilities have not disclosed salaries, so the compilations show only part of the market. Patients are not directly affected by changes in service prices, because the rate cap is still only a proposal. A fuller picture is expected from hospitals’ reporting to the NFZ, but no publication date for consolidated data has been given. As of publication, there is no information on the reaction of medical organisations to the latest compilations.
