Press Release 06/04/2021

HEALTH OVERVIEW. 2021

In the Basque Country, the majority of health professionals are women

Women visit primary care centres more frequently, while men are admitted to hospital more often

As part of World Health Day tomorrow, 7 April, Eustat is publishing important data on healthcare resources, the treatment of health problems and health expenditure.

The healthcare activities branch employed 62,078 people, 6.7% of jobs in the Basque Country, according to the “Health Overview 2021”. Most of these people (55%) worked in hospital activities and 75% were women.

The number of registered professionals, which reflects the human resources available in healthcare, showed that the largest group was nursing staff (16,826), followed by medicine (12,045), pharmacy (3,196), physiotherapy (2,887), dentistry (1,856) and psychology (1,849) staff. Women accounted for the majority of all human resources, especially in the case of nursing (90%). Comparatively, the Basque Country was among the Autonomous Communities with the largest numbers of registered active medical professionals (5.5 per 1,000 inhabitants) and nurses (7.7 per 1,000 inhabitants).

Students studying health sciences at university were also predominantly female. In the 2018/2019 academic year, 86% of psychology, 85% of nursing, 78% of pharmacy and 71% of medicine graduates were women.

In terms of provision, the Basque Country had 39 hospitals in 2018. The largest hospitals were public: 2 had capacity for more than 800 beds, 3 for more than 400 and another 2 for more than 200.

In 2018, the Basque hospital network had 7,010 beds. The rate of operational beds per 1,000 (3.21) was below the European Union average (5 beds), but above that of Spain (2.98). Furthermore, day hospitals, of which there were 1,375 places in 2018, are another resource that is becoming more common within the public system as an alternative to conventional hospitals.

The use of healthcare services and morbidity differed by gender

Women visited primary care centres (5.7 times a year on average) more frequently than men (4.5), and the same applied to nursing. Demand was highest among the youngest and the oldest age groups. In fact, people aged 80 and over may exceed 10 visits per year.

The most common health problems within primary care varied according to age: problems with the respiratory system (acute infections of the upper tract and asthma) were most common among people under 15 years of age, skin conditions among those aged between 15 and 34, locomotor conditions among those aged between 35 and 64, and circulatory system problems (high blood pressure) for men and locomotor conditions among women aged 65 and over.

In hospitals, the rate of hospital morbidity was 11,282 per 100,000 inhabitants in the Basque Country in 2019. It was higher among men (11,765) than women (10,826) due, among other causes, to the continuing decline in the number of pregnancy, childbirth and puerperium incidents in recent years. The gap would be larger still if we did not consider this type of care (9,330).

Aside from pregnancy, childbirth and puerperium incidents, the main causes of hospitalisation were the same for women as for men: diseases of the circulatory, digestive and respiratory systems were responsible for 38.2% of hospital admissions in 2019. The prevalence of these three major groups of illnesses was higher among men.

According to age, the most common causes of hospitalisation among the population under 15 years of age were diseases of the respiratory system; among those aged 15 to 34 it was pregnancy, childbirth and puerperium for women and trauma and injuries for men; among those aged 35 to 64 it was diseases of the digestive system; and for those aged 65 and over, the age group that accounted for more than 50% of hospital admissions, it was circulatory diseases.

Health expenditure increased by 4.7% in 2019, above the increase in GDP in the same year (3.3%)

In 2019, the Basque Country spent 7,042 million euros on healthcare, 4.7% up on the previous year, which was equivalent to 8.9% of GDP and to per capita expenditure of €3,216. This spending was 68.9% financed by the public sector and 31.1% by the private sector.

Health expenditure per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) ($) in the Basque Country grew above the average of the OECD and Spain in recent years. In 2019, it reached $4,871 at PPP, above the average of the OECD (4,224) and Spain (3,616).

The distribution of expenditure by functions varied according to the source of funding. The majority of household expenditure was spent on outpatient curative care (38.4%), the purchase of medical products (28.5%) and on long-term hospital services (15.1%). The public administrations spent the most on curative care (more than 50%), hospital care (29.5%) and outpatient care (26.8%), followed by medical products (11.1%) and long-term hospital services (10.3%).

For further information:

Eustat - Euskal Estatistika Erakundea / Basque Statistics Institute C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz Press Service: servicioprensa@eustat.es Tel: 945 01 75 62