Health expenditure on the rise

Di-Ve

11 January 2010 -- 11:45CEST

by John Paul Cordina - editorial@di-ve.com

Current Affairs --

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Government expenditure on healthcare reached €227.5 million in 2008, a 15.3 per cent increase over last year’s figure.
A National Statistics Office publication shows that the figure amounts to 21.2 per cent of government’s total social protection expenditure for the year.

Expenditure on St Luke’s Hospital and Mater Dei Hospital in 2008, the latter’s first full year of operations amounted to €104.3 million, a National Statistics Office publication shows.

The figure represents an increase of 23.6 per cent over the previous year, although the number also reflects increased activity in the 2 hospitals.

The number of ward admissions increased by 11.6 per cent to reach 84,337 while the number of new outpatients shot up by 76 per cent to 124,076. 225,981 follow-up appointments and walk-ins were made, 24.2 per cent more than 2007, while the number of surgical operations carried out increased by 2.9 per cent to reach 33,743.

The average length of stay stood at 3 days, down from 4.3 days in 2007.

While the 2 hospitals saw a greater workload, government health centres and district clinics saw a decrease in activity. The number of visits at health centres amounted to 262,373, a 19.2 per cent drop over 2007 figures, while the number of visits at district clinics fell by 12.3 per cent to 155,187. The number of home visits also dropped by 11.6 per cent, amounting to 12,272.

Nevertheless, government expenditure on primary care in 2008 increased by 20.2 per cent over 2007 levels, reaching €15.9 million.

Conversely, expenditure on community pharmacy services decreased despite a significant increase in prescriptions. While expenditure dropped by 2.4 per cent to €57.3 million, the number of prescriptions handed out increased by 36.2 per cent, while the number of items handed out increased by 37.3 per cent, to 1.13 million and 2.18 million respectively.