The Czech Republic may be one of the best prepared countries in the European Union for dealing with the coronavirus, in terms of the number of hospital beds available. With 6.6 operational hospital beds per 1,000 citizens, the country has the fourth highest number of hospital beds per capita in the European Union. In photo: Brno University Hospital in Bohunice. Credit: Brno Daily, 2019.
Czech Rep., Mar 27 (BD) – According to a research conducted by NimbleFins, Germany has the most hospital beds per capita in the European Union*, with 8 beds per 1,000 citizens. Next in the rankings are Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Lithuania, who all have more than 6 beds per 1,000 citizens.
At the bottom end of the list are Italy, Spain, Ireland, United Kingdom, Denmark and Sweden, which are all between 3.2 beds (Italy) and 2.2 beds (Sweden) per 1,000 residents.
The average number of hospital beds per 1,000 citizens in the European countries included in the research is 4.9. At 6.6 hospital beds per 1,000 citizens, the Czech Republic is 35% above the average.
Available Hospital Beds Compared to Elderly Population
With older residents more likely to be hospitalized and more at risk of fatalities, NimbleFins also mapped hospital beds per 1,000 people aged over 70 years, in order to better judge hospital bed infrastructure among the European countries.
In this evaluation, the Czech Republic remains high in the rankings, with 51.9 beds per 1,000 citizens over 70, the fifth highest of European Union member states. The top six countries, each with more than 50 beds per 1,000 elderly citizens, are Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany.
At the other end of the scale are the UK, Italy, Denmark and Sweden, all with fewer than 20 beds per 1,000 elderly citizens, ranging from 19.5 beds in the United Kingdom down to 15.5 beds in Sweden.
The Czech Republic also has a relatively low percentage of elderly citizens compared to other European countries; only 13% of Czech citizens are aged over 70, the fifth lowest percentage of all countries included in the research.
The lowest percentages were found in Ireland, Slovakia and Luxembourg, all of which have less than 10% of citizens aged over 70. The greyest populations are found in Greece and Italy, both with more than 16% of their citizens older than 70.
*The research included countries that were Member States of the European Union before 2007, therefore excluding Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania, and including the United Kingdom. Cyprus and Malta were also not included in the research.
