On the occasion of the World Health Day that will be celebrated tomorrow, Statistic Portugal publishes a new edition of the publication "Estatísticas da Saúde" (Health Statistics in English), mainly with statistical indicators for 2021. This information includes data on the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The following results stand out:

• The percentage of the population with limitations in performing activities people usually do as a result of health problems reached the highest value (34.9%) in 2021, with a higher proportion being kept in 2022 (34.0%) vs. the pre-pandemic period. Portugal remained one of the countries of the European Union (EU-27) in which this indicator reached the highest expression (25.2% for the EU-27).

• The healthy life expectancy at age 65 for the residents in Portugal was 7.7 years, 2.1 years less than the European average (9.8 years).

• In 2021, there were 58,735 doctors and 80,238 nurses in Portugal, respectively 2.7% more doctors and 2.9% more nurses than in 2020.

• After the strong impact of the pandemic on hospital activity experienced in 2020, there was a recovery of care acts provided by hospitals in 2021. Medical appointments and diagnostic or therapeutic complementary acts increased to values higher than those recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic, but emergency services attendances, hospitalisations, and surgeries in operating rooms did not reach the values recorded in 2019, despite their growth.

• The recovery in activity carried out during 2021 covers both public and private providers. Public sector hospitals increased in all dimensions, especially surgeries in operating room (+22.4%). The activity of private hospitals had significant increases in diagnosis or therapy complementary acts (+27.2%), in hospitalisations (+27.0%) and in medical appointments (+22.7%).

• Public or public-private partnership hospitals continued in 2021 to be the main providers of health services, producing 86.2% of diagnostic or therapeutic complementary acts, 84.2% of emergency care attendances, 72.3% of hospitalisations, 72.1% of surgeries in operating room and 63.2% of medical appointments.

See the Publication