The Burrow
Sep 24, 2024
Hospitals are a crucial part of healthcare. The more hospitals and hospital beds a country has available, the better.
While there are several factors that impact patient waiting times for treatment (such as understaffing), the number of beds available can impact how quickly patients are seen for emergency medical care and scheduled medical procedures.
This issue has been highlighted repeatedly in the last few years across Australia, where patients waiting in an ambulance have been unable to be transferred into the care of Emergency Department nurses due to a lack of beds.1 This is known as ‘ramping’.
As private health insurance comparison experts, we wanted to see which countries had the best hospital bed availability, based on the number of hospitals and hospital beds per 100,000 people.
We gathered data for countries across the world and crunched the numbers. Here are the results.
South Korea was ranked the best for hospital bed numbers. The peninsular nation had 1,275 beds per 100,000 people, which was the highest number of all countries studied. South Korea had a higher number of hospitals per capita at 7.38.
Japan was ranked second in the world for hospital bed availability. In terms of beds per capita, Japan trailed South Korea with 1,272 beds per 100,000 people – a difference of three beds per 100,000. Likewise, Japan also has a slightly lower number of hospitals per capita at 6.63.
The highest-ranking country from Europe in the indexed hospital bed scores is Bulgaria. The Balkan nation had 777 beds per 100,000 people, which is the fourth-highest number after Germany at 780 beds per 100,000. However, Bulgaria was ranked higher because it had 5.35 hospitals per 100,000 people, in comparison to Germany’s 2.28.
Other countries in the top five (when accounting for tied rankings) include Azerbaijan, France and Austria.
The table below shows the results for the top 20 ranked countries, accounting for tied index scores.
| Ranking | Country | No. of hospital beds per 100,000 | No. of hospitals per 100,000 | Index score |
| 1 | South Korea | 1,275 | 7.38 | 9.72 |
| 2 | Japan | 1,272 | 6.63 | 9.44 |
| 3 | Bulgaria | 777 | 5.35 | 9.07 |
| 4 | Azerbaijan | 390 | 11.57 | 8.42 |
| France | 600 | 4.38 | ||
| 5 | Austria | 706 | 2.99 | 8.24 |
| 6 | Romania | 706 | 2.70 | 8.15 |
| 7 | Germany | 780 | 2.28 | 8.14 |
| 8 | Argentina | 334 | 7.33 | 7.77 |
| 9 | Australia | 384 | 5.19 | 7.59 |
| Switzerland | 444 | 3.16 | ||
| 10 | Croatia | 560 | 2.33 | 7.50 |
| 11 | Greece | 424 | 2.58 | 7.13 |
| 12 | New Zealand | 266 | 5.71 | 6.85 |
| China | 500 | 2.01 | ||
| 13 | Czechia | 660 | 1.75 | 6.76 |
| 14 | Hungary | 684 | 1.70 | 6.66 |
| 15 | Portugal | 353 | 2.16 | 6.39 |
| 16 | Cyprus | 224 | 9.51 | 6.29 |
| 17 | Canada | 256 | 3.28 | 6.20 |
| 18 | Slovakia | 568 | 1.43 | 5.92 |
| 19 | Brazil | 246 | 3.14 | 5.74 |
| 20 | Albania | 291 | 1.98 | 5.65 |
View the full list of results here.
While hospital ramping has been a problem in Australia recently, in comparison to other nations, Australia performs well when it comes to the number of beds and hospitals per capita, ranking ninth out of the studied nations.
Australia had 384 beds and 5.19 hospitals per 100,000 people. These were ranked 18th and ninth highest respectively in our hospital availability index.
Australia has a public and private health system that provides healthcare for citizens and residents. Having private health insurance increases patient choice and helps save time by avoiding public waiting lists for elective surgery when treated in a private hospital.
Compare the Market’s Executive General Manager of Health, Steven Spicer, explained that private hospital insurance offers more treatment options if you are admitted as an inpatient.
“By having private hospital insurance, you can claim a rebate on procedures and treatments as an inpatient in hospital, depending on your level of cover. This allows you to choose your own available doctor, choose the hospital that you are treated in, and have a private room if one’s available,” Mr Spicer said.
“The caveat there is you may have waiting periods when first purchasing or upgrading your private health cover. These differ depending on the specific clinical category and whether you’re seeking treatment for a pre-existing condition.
“In any case, it’s worth comparing your options so that you can find a policy and level of cover that suits your needs and circumstances.”
To calculate an index score to rank countries based on hospital beds and hospitals per capita, we sourced data for the number of beds per 100,000 and number of hospitals for 54 countries globally. The number of hospitals were converted to a per capita figure by using the nation’s population and the number of hospitals, including public and private hospitals.
For each statistic, countries received a score between 0 and 10, based on their number of hospitals and hospital beds in relation to each other. The higher the figure, the higher the score out of 10. These two scores were then averaged together to create an overall index score that was used to rank the 54 countries.
The sources are listed below.
Note that hospital figures data for Canada, Greece, South Africa, Switzerland, the USA and Vietnam were not from the International Trade Administration as they were not available in that data set and were sourced separately.
References: