In brief

• Medical dispatchers who answer emergency calls to the 112 number are missing across the country.
• In some cities there is no dispatcher on duty at all.
• The lack of staff on the line may lengthen the time it takes to send ambulances and rescue teams.

Not enough people on the phone

Medical dispatchers who answer calls to the emergency number are in short supply across the country (Numer 112 sam potrzebuje ratunku. Polska bez ratowników na linii – Wirtualna Polska). In some cities there is no dispatcher on duty. The problem therefore concerns not individual centres but the whole system of receiving medical calls.

The Kraków case as a warning

The starting point is the situation in Kraków. The author of the text notes that if the attacker with a weapon had chosen another city, the number of victims could have been much higher. Dispatchers decide how quickly ambulances and rescue teams are sent to the scene, so every gap on the line affects response time.

What this means for patients

For people calling 112, this means longer waits for a connection and the risk that a report will be handled with a delay. The material does not provide data on waiting times or the number of vacancies at this point, so we do not cite details that cannot be confirmed.

Emergency calls still go to medical dispatchers, and in a life-threatening situation it is worth calling the 112 number without delay.