Where does this news come from?

The American website 'The Huffington Post' published a list of European countries with the element in which each of those countries obtains the worst score. (1) The information is based on Eurostat figures and was collected by several newspapers. Belgium scores the worst in terms of traffic congestion and traffic jams. Slovenia has the highest number of deaths from alcohol abuse. Sweden is in bad shape because it has very few hospital beds.

Fountain

(1) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thrillist/what-every-european-count_b_6140266.html

How should you interpret this news?

It takes little imagination to assume that health care problems will arise in a developing country as a result of a limited number of available hospital beds. It is much less clear whether a comparison of the number of hospital beds between different industrialized countries says anything about the quality of healthcare. Perhaps in a country with few hospital beds people are healthier and there is less need for beds. Or are hygienic conditions and outpatient healthcare so good that fewer people need to be hospitalized? Or is care for the elderly so well organized that, if necessary, they can easily go to a residential care facility?

Many Western countries, including Belgium, have reduced their bed capacity in recent decades. This was often accompanied by a reorientation of sick care toward day hospitalization, psychiatric or palliative care, or an expansion of care to the chronically ill and the elderly.

Scientific studies on this topic were carried out mainly in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The World Health Organization published an extensive report on this in 2003. (2) In Canada, a reduction in the number of acute beds was found to have no negative impact on the accessibility or quality of care. In England this was different and the reduction in the number of beds in winter caused problems in the care of people with acute illnesses. This is because in the United Kingdom the number of beds has always been very small.

Conclusion

The number of hospital beds per capita is an unusable criterion for making a statement about the functioning of a health system. In countries that had more than sufficient bed capacity beforehand, a reduction in the number of beds has not led to a reduction in the quality of care.

References

(2) http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/74713/E82973.PDF