The number of nurses employed in nursing homes (DPS) is steadily declining, according to information presented at Tuesday's meeting of the parliamentary Senior Policy Committee. At the end of 2024, there were 4665 nurses working in facilities of this type, while 3469 FTEs.
DPSs are finding it increasingly difficult to find nurses willing to work. It's all about the money
Published Oct. 16, 2025 06:59
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- Just two years earlier, the figure was 3735 FTEs," the director of the Department of Social Welfare at the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy, Beata Karlinska, told MPs.
There are 824 social welfare homes with more than 78,000 residents, more than 10,000 of whom are bedridden and require constant care. DPSs employ 139 physicians on a scale of 139, with only eighteen full-time positions. The nursing homes also employ 1,334 physiotherapists, 1165 of whom are full-time equivalents. In total, DPSs employ more than 58,000 workers, including more than 55,000 full-time employees.
At least in theory, when it comes to medical and nursing care, there shouldn't be a problem: DPS residents are provided with POZ care. As Deputy Health Minister Tomasz Maciejewski said, citing data from the National Health Fund, 95,549 DPS residents in the first half of 2025 will have been provided with OPZ physician services, while 80,156 will have been provided with OPZ nurse services. In 2024, a total of nearly PLN 40 million will be spent on home long-term nursing care services, also provided in DPS.
According to data from the Ministry of Public Health and Social Policy, between January and August 2025, 16,671 requests were made to PCPs to provide benefits to DPS residents - of which only 48 were denied. The situation is much worse for nursing services. Of the 15,949 requests for OPD nurses, as many as 282 ended in denial. Even more alarming data concern long-term nursing care - here, out of 2357 requests, as many as 525 were denied, which indicates serious problems with the realization of the right to care within the framework of the POZ. These problems are due to both staffing and financial constraints.
One of the reasons why DPSs are finding it increasingly difficult to find nurses willing to work is the disparity in wages - these facilities are not covered by the Law on Minimum Wages for Health Care Workers, so they do not have guaranteed minimum rates to which nurses are entitled, and the local government units that run these facilities are unable to compete for staff with medical entities, and have long been drawing attention to the worsening problem of a shortage of both medical (nurses, physiotherapists, and to a lesser extent, doctors) and nursing staff.
