The number of usable hospital beds decreased by nearly 10,000 in the past 15 years

Since 2010, beds have gradually disappeared from Hungarian healthcare institutions. Thousands of beds were eliminated, and in recent years, the number of “permanently suspended” beds has also skyrocketed. Although the current total number of hospital beds in Hungary is still considered good within the European Union, active patient care now operates on less than 40,000 beds. And even though the utilization of Hungarian hospital beds has increased in recent years, it is still nowhere near the 2010 level.

According to the latest Eurostat data for 2023, Hungary is among the leaders in terms of hospital beds per 100,000 inhabitants. With 650 beds per 100,000 inhabitants, Hungary ranks fifth after Austria (660), Romania (728), Germany (766) and Bulgaria (864). However, the detailed data puts this good ranking into perspective.

In the table containing the same domestic data from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH), the number of beds per capita (662) is roughly the same in 2023, with a slight difference. However, in 2024, the number of beds available for hospital care was already 2,167 fewer in absolute terms, and also lower in terms of population ratio (643).

However, KSH does not provide an important variable in their dataset: the number and proportion of active and chronic inpatients. This information can be found at Eurostat, However: in terms of the number of active beds per capita, Hungary ranks in the middle of the list (9th place), but it ranked first in 2023 in terms of chronic (and other types of) beds.

If we dig deeper than the national and international statistical offices and look up the official hospital bed statistics on the website of the National Health Insurance Fund (NEAK), we can get an even more accurate picture of the situation of inpatient care in hospitals.

What is immediately apparent from the data is that the number of beds actually used for everyday medical care (i.e., active beds) is only about two-thirds of the total number of beds, with the remaining one-third reserved for chronic care. In other words,

in 2024, only 42,248 of the 68,484 beds were reserved for active medical treatment.

Even more telling is the change in the number of beds in operation (the total value of which is published by both the Hungarian Central Statistical Office and Eurostat): 61,303 beds, of which 38,811 were reserved for active treatment.

In total, there is a shortage of 7,181 beds in Hungarian hospitals

(only 61,303 of the 64,484 beds are in use), including 3,437 beds in active medicine (only 38,811 of the 42,248 beds are in use). This represents a 10.4 percent (8.1 percent within active care) suspension rate, which cannot be considered normal based on data from the past fifteen years.

The number of permanently suspended beds has increased significantly in recent years. Compared to 2010, the number of operating beds has decreased by nearly 10,000 due to actual bed reductions and suspensions.

The decrease in the number of beds resulting from the suspension was felt most acutely in internal medicine, where nearly 1,000 beds are currently unused, a figure that has risen sharply over the last three years. Hundreds of beds have also been taken out of service in key specialties,

with surgical departments forced to operate with 330 fewer beds in 2024 and maternity wards with 163 fewer beds.

In terms of the ratio of beds in each department, the largest reduction took place in psychiatric departments, where nearly one-fifth of beds were permanently withdrawn from treatment.

With the actual number of beds being roughly 10 percent lower, a downward trend can also be seen in the annual bed occupancy rate. While the overall bed occupancy rate was 76.4 percent in 2010 (71.6 percent in active wards and 84.3 percent in chronic wards), this rate (despite a slight increase in recent years) fell to 64.9 percent by 2024 (58.7 percent in active care and 75.5 percent in chronic care). This is a logical consequence of the decrease in the number of beds: fewer beds mean fewer patients can be treated.

However, the seemingly low bed occupancy rate is not necessarily a bad thing: if the rate were too high (around 90 percent), it would indicate that hospitals are overcrowded, while a rate that is too low would indicate unnecessary maintenance. And although there would be room to admit patients (since there is demand, as indicated by waiting lists that can stretch for years), the bottleneck in treatment is not the number of beds, but the availability of skilled, respected, and adequately paid doctors.

Written and translated by Krisztián Szabó. The original Hungarian story can be found here. Cover image: Péter Takács, State Secretary for Health at the Ministry of the Interior, gives a speech at the opening ceremony of the renovated infectious diseases building at the Imre Hungarian Hospital in Ajka on June 30, 2023. (photo: MTI/Tibor Katona).