Press release 12/20/2012
The number patients in Basque hospitals increased by 1.7% in 2011.
Hospital admissions due to osteomuscular diseases rose by 7%.
Hospitals in the Basque country registered 323,621 discharges of patients that were admitted in 2011, which was 1.7% up on 2010, according to Eustat data. 74% corresponded to public hospitals and 26% to private hospitals.
Diseases associated with the nervous system and sensory organs were the main cause of admission to hospital (12.4%); these were followed by diseases of the digestive system and of the circulatory system (both with 11.3%), tumours (9.2%) and osteomuscular diseases (9.1%).
The most notable statistic with regards to the previous year was the number of pregnancy, birth and puerperium episodes (-1.1%), and the rise in osteomuscular diseases (7%), respiratory diseases (5,7%), diseases of the nervous system and sensory organs (4.4%) and diseases of the digestive system (3.4%).
Of the total number of hospitalised individuals, 51.7% were women and 48.3% were men. The greater presence of women was due to the effect of admissions for pregnancy and birth. 43.4% of admitted individuals were aged 65 or over, a proportion that has not stopped growing over the last few years (42.6 % en 2009 and 42.9% in 2010), with 77 being the most common age for hospitalisation.
For men, diseases of the digestive system (13.6%) and of the circulatory system (13.4%) were the main causes of hospitalisation; they were followed by diseases of the nervous system and the sensory organs (10.8%) and those of the respiratory system (10.4%).
In the case of women, the greatest number of discharges corresponded to pregnancy, birth and puerperium (15.3%), followed by diseases of the nervous system and sensory organs (13.9%), of the circulatory system (9.3%) and of the digestive system (9.1%).
The most frequent pathologies were cataracts (nervous system and sensory organs), heart failure and coronary arteriosclerosis (circulatory system), inguinal hernia and gallstones (digestive system) and pneumonia and respiratory failure (respiratory system).
Other large disease groups (over 25,000 patients) were tumours and osteomuscular disease. The most common types of tumour were, in the following order, stomach, colon, breast and prostate.
Thus, tumours continued to be the main cause of death in hospitals (24.8%), followed by circulatory diseases (22.6%) and respiratory diseases (17.3%). By type of pathology, septicaemia appeared as the third cause of death in hospitals.
Osteomuscular diseases were also found amongst the most frequent health problems. Hospital admissions caused by these diseases were up by 7% compared to 2010 with the main pathologies being internal derangement of the knee (average age 47) and osteoarthritis (average age 68), accounting for 41.5% of cases for this disease group.
The average stay in hospital stood at 6 days in 2011 (6.1 in 2010 and 6.3 in 2009). By case history, the longest stays corresponded to mental disorders (14.1 days), perinatal diseases (11.3 days), infectious diseases (9.1 days) and tumours (8,2 days).
For further information:
Basque Statistics Office
C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz
Tel: +34-945-01 75 00 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01 E-mail: eustat@eustat.eus
Contact: Marta de la Torre Fernández
Tel:+34-945-01 75 34 Fax:+34-945-01 75 01
Further press releases on Hospital Admission and Discharge Statistics
Hospital Admission and Discharge Statistics databank