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Public sector hospitals remain the main providers of health care, despite the strong increase of the private sector
World Health Day - 7 April
Public sector hospitals remain the main providers of health care, despite the strong increase of the private sector - 2006 - 2016
06 April 2018

Summary

In 2016, there were 225 hospitals in Portugal, of which 111 belonged to the official health services, 49.3% of the total.  The number of private hospitals continued to increase, surpassing for the first time that of hospitals belonging to the official health services.
In that year, hospitals had 35,337 beds equipped for the immediate hospitalisation of patients, of which 24,056 in the official health services hospitals. These hospitals showed, for the first time in ten years, an increase in the number of beds available for hospitalisation, although small (more 29 beds than in 2015). The number of beds available in private hospitals kept increasing with a total of 11,281 beds in 2016 (plus 418 than in 2015).
The number of attendances in hospital emergency services, as well as medical appointments, complementary acts of diagnosis and complementary acts of therapy in hospitals increased between 2015 and 2016, always more significantly in private hospitals than in public and public-private partnership hospitals, even though it is in these that most of these medical acts continue to be carried out.
In 2016, the number of doctors and nurses certified by their respective professional associations kept increasing (+3.6% doctors and +2.6% nurses).
In the same year, around 54% of total deaths were caused by diseases of the circulatory system and malignant neoplasms. Deaths caused by diseases of the respiratory system (which accounted for 12.1% of all deaths) were also relevant, including pneumonia which caused 5.4% of deaths. Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases caused 5.0% of all deaths, including deaths from diabetes mellitus which represented 3.9% of the total. Deaths due to external causes of injury and poisoning accounted for 4.4% of total deaths in 2016, with emphasis on the relative importance of deaths due to accidents (2,847 deaths) and suicide and other intentional self-inflicted injuries (981 deaths).
Between 2014 and 2016, more than half of current health expenditure was funded by the National Health Service and by the Regional Health Services of the autonomous regions.

 

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