Cyprus healthcare expenditure stable at 7.2% of GDP in 2010

Expenditure on health services increased from 6.7 % of GDP in 2008 to 7.2% in both 2009 and 2010 according to the annual report “Health and Hospital Statistics”.
Total expenditure in 2010 is estimated at EUR 1,260.0 mln (EUR 1.3 bln), of which EUR 574.6 mln represents expenditure of the public sector and EUR 685.4 mln the private sector.
In 2010, 74,975 patients were admitted for treatment and discharged from the general hospitals, recording an increase of 7.7% over the previous year.
The disease category, “Injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes” had the highest share at 11.4% of in-patients.
The report says that 30,618 surgical operations performed on in-patients and out-patients and rose by 0.9% over the previous year.
General surgery operations accounted for 23.7% of all operations performed on in patients.
Out-patients attendances increased by 5.0% over the previous year, reaching 1,909,524, of which 52.8% represented attendances at rural hospitals and health centres.
The highest proportions of out-patient visits were for General Medicine, Cardiology, Internal Medicine, Paediatrics and Orthopaedics.
A total of 400,992 patients visited the Casualty Departments of the general hospitals, recording a decrease of 2.7% over the previous year.
The full report on medical services of the public sector provides, inter alia, data on in-patients, surgical operations, out-patient attendances, bed-occupancy rates, information on medical, nursing and paramedical personnel and various other health indicators.
The report can be downloaded free of charge from the website of the Statistical Service or purchased from the Government Printing Office in Nicosia for EUR 13.50.