{"id":432441,"date":"2025-07-15T13:27:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T11:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/07\/15\/negli-ultimi-dieci-anni-i-posti-letto-negli-ospedali-ue-sono-diminuiti-del-7-per-cento\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T15:11:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T13:11:04","slug":"eu-hospital-beds-down-7-percent-over-the-last-ten-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/07\/15\/eu-hospital-beds-down-7-percent-over-the-last-ten-years\/","title":{"rendered":"EU hospital beds down 7 percent over the last ten years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Brussels &#8211; Over the past decade,&nbsp;the number of hospital beds in Europe <strong>has fallen from 557 to 511 per 100,000 inhabitants<\/strong>. A slow and constant reduction, as confirmed by the latest <a href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/eurostat\/web\/products-eurostat-news\/w\/ddn-20250715-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">data<\/a> released by Eurostat:&nbsp;even from 2022 to 2023, 5 beds per 100 thousand inhabitants were lost. The trend is the same in Italy, where there has been a reduction of 25 beds since 2013. Today, the country&#8217;s hospitals have a total of 179,372 beds.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The picture taken by the EU statistical service indicates&nbsp;a generalized decline, with the mitigating factor, as Eurostat points out in a note, that &#8220;scientific and technological developments have shortened the average length of stay for many in-patient procedures or replaced them with out-patient or day care alternatives.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Among the EU-27, Bulgaria has the highest ratio of hospital beds to population, with an average of 864 per 100,000 inhabitants. Germany followed with 766, Romania with 728, Austria with 660, and Hungary with 651. On the contrary, in 2023, seven Member States had fewer than 300 hospital beds per 100,000&nbsp;inhabitants: Sweden was the bottom of the list (187), followed by the Netherlands (231), Denmark (233), Finland (260), Spain (288), Ireland (289), and Cyprus (298). <strong>Italy was just above the threshold of 300 beds per 100,000 inhabitants<\/strong>, with 308.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/total-beds-hospitals-2023.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-432424 \" src=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/total-beds-hospitals-2023.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"505\" height=\"284\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/total-beds-hospitals-2023.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/total-beds-hospitals-2023-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/total-beds-hospitals-2023-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/total-beds-hospitals-2023-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/total-beds-hospitals-2023-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/total-beds-hospitals-2023-750x422.jpg 750w, https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/total-beds-hospitals-2023-1140x641.jpg 1140w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 505px) 100vw, 505px\" \/><\/a>While the total number of beds for medical care decreased by 7 percent between 2013 and 2023, the most significant contraction was in Finland, where the total number of beds decreased by 45 percent. <strong>Only six member states saw&nbsp;the opposite trend<\/strong>: Portugal and Spain (both with a 0.8 percent increase), Romania (with a 4 percent increase), Malta (with an 8 percent increase), Bulgaria (with a 13 percent increase), and Ireland (with a 30 percent increase).&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/05\/20\/demographic-crisis-aging-eu-population-relies-on-immigration-with-italy-leading-the-decline\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">confirming<\/a>&nbsp;a progressively ageing European population, the number of beds in nursing and other long-term care residential facilities relative to the population increased in most EU countries. In 2023, there were approximately 3.6 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2013, there were 557 per 100,000 inhabitants; ten years later, the number was 511. Italy is just above the 300 beds per 100,000 inhabitants threshold<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":432433,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[30961],"tags":[31425,26640,26917,31767,30181,31768],"class_list":["post-432441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-salute-en","tag-eurostat-en-2","tag-health","tag-sanita-en","tag-invecchiamento-en","tag-ospedali-en","tag-posti-letto-ospedalieri-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":432442,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432441\/revisions\/432442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}