Erfurt (dpa/th) - The hospitals in Thuringia treated around 100,000 fewer patients last year than in the pre-Corona year 2019. This corresponds to a decrease in patient numbers of 17.2 percent compared to the level before the pandemic, like that State Statistical Office announced on Friday. While almost 580,000 people were still being treated in hospital in 2019, there were only around 480,000 in the second year of the pandemic. The decline in patient numbers observed in 2020 thus continued. Compared to 2020, the number of inpatient treatments fell by 4.4 percent.
In the first two years of Corona, many hospitals had postponed treatments that could be planned, sometimes for months. The utilization was also limited due to hygiene measures, some patients had also shied away from hospital treatment during the pandemic. According to the statisticians, around 64 percent of the around 15,300 hospital beds set up in 2021 - 217 fewer than in 2020 - were occupied. In the years before the pandemic, the average occupancy rate was around 75 percent - with more beds (2019: around 15,700). The duration of treatment in the hospitals last year was statistically 7.4 days per patient, the same as in 2019 and 2020.
Despite the pandemic, the growth in hospital doctors that has been observed for years has continued. Their number increased from 2020 to 2021 by 2.2 percent to 5,482. At the end of 2021, 13,631 nurses were employed in clinics. Although this is 71 or 0.5 percent less than a year earlier, it is around 1,100 more than at the end of 2019 (12,527). 44 clinics were recorded for the statistics.
