According to data released by the EU Statistics Office, the countries with the highest proportion of beds in relation to the size of their population were Bulgaria (870 hospital beds per 100,000 inhabitants), followed by Germany (759), Romania (731), Austria (655) and the Czech Republic (639).

The six countries with the lowest rates were: Sweden (187), Netherlands (221), Denmark (226), Finland (248), Spain (283) and Ireland (293).

Higher average

In 2023, the EU average was slightly higher (511 per 100,000 inhabitants), with Eurostat noting that the number “has been decreasing since the beginning of the historical series in 2009 (582 hospital beds per 100,000 inhabitants), reflecting the impact of scientific and technological advances that have reduced the average length of stay for many procedures or replaced them with alternatives,” such as outpatient care.

“In most EU countries, the number of hospital beds was lower in 2024 than it was in 2014,” it says, but in seven it increased, as is the case in Portugal (+3%), Spain (+0.5%), Romania (4%), Bulgaria (9%), Cyprus (10%), Malta (11%) and Ireland (32%).

Non-existent beds

In the case of hospital beds for long-term care, Portugal appears among the countries where they do not exist, such as Germany, the Netherlands or Sweden.

The Eurostat analysis also includes beds for long-term care in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, and in this case too, Portugal is among the three worst, with only 94 beds per 100,000 inhabitants, alongside Bulgaria and Greece, with 26 and 20 beds, respectively.

More beds

The list of countries with the highest number of beds in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities per 100,000 inhabitants was topped by the Netherlands (1,390), followed by Sweden (1,298), Belgium (1,249), Malta (1,222) and Finland (1,202).

In most other EU countries, the number of these beds exceeded 500, but was less than 1,200 per 100,000 inhabitants.