Healthcare in Spain: among the most expensive in Europe. State health is a 21.9% more expensive than the average of European Union countries in 2022. This percentage has been steadily increasing in recent years: five years ago, the figure was ten percentage points lower, according to the latest data published by Eurostat. At the beginning of the historical series, the percentage was 8.7%.

Specifically, the countries with the highest prices compared to the average are Ireland, with 82.2%. Followed in this classification by Sweden, with a higher percentage of 69.4%; and Luxembourg, with a rate 67.5% higher than the European Union average. Outside member states, UK prices showed an increase compared to the European average of 138.8%.

On the other hand, the countries with the cheapest health products are Romania, with a difference of 71.8%; Hungary, with a negative percentage of 55.3%; and Poland, with a lower percentage of 52.3%. Away from the European Union, negative figures compared to the continental average Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania stand out, all three with percentages below 60% compared to the average.

The countries with the lowest prices for health products are Romania, Hungary and Poland

Regarding health spending, European Union countries recorded an average increase of 8.7% in 2021 compared to the previous year.up from 55,472 million euros in 2020 to 60,287 million euros in 2021according to data published by Eurostat last week.

Although Italy was the third country to invest the most resources in the European Union in its health system in 2021, This region is the region with the smallest increase in expenditure compared to 2020, with an increase of 4.9%. Greece followed this list, with an increase of 6% (from 15,719 million euros to 16,664 million euros), as well as Belgium and Germany, both with increases of 7.8%.

The country that increased its expenditure the most compared to the previous year was Latvia, where the figure increased by 38.5% in 2021, rose from 2.193 million euros to 3.038 million euros. The countries that followed were Slovakia with an increase of 16.8% (from 6,659 million euros to 7,776 million euros) and Bulgaria with an increase of 16.4% (from 5,225 million euros to 6,081 million euros).

In the case of Spain, with 129.615 million euros, a rebound of 7.9% was recorded in 2021almost one point below average, after the 120.125 million euros invested in its health system in 2020.

However, the Spanish public system is one of the systems that allocates the fewest hospital beds to its centers in Europe. With figure 296 beds per 100,000 residentsPublic health Spain is among the ten countries with the fewest beds in Europe, according to data published by Eurostat in 2021. In fact, the figure is 56% lower than the average of 27 European countries, which amounts to 524 beds.

According to the European Commission statistics office, the list of countries with the most hospital beds in 2021 is Bulgaria (792 beds), Germany (777 beds) and Romania (720 beds). In contrast, the worst ranked countries on this list are Sweden (200 beds), Liechtenstein (227 beds) and Denmark (251 beds).