Hospitals in Latvia 2000-2020

Since 2000, the number of hospitals in Latvia has fallen significantly from 142 hospitals to only 60 in 2020. The number of hospitals dropped dramatically between 2008 to 2009, dropping by almost twenty, which was the highest drop between years in the provided time interval. 

Employees in the Latvian healthcare sector

Alongside the fall in the number of hospitals in Latvia, the number of practicing doctors and nurses in the country has also fallen. The number of physicians in Latvia in the period 2000 to 2018 has fallen from around 6.8 thousand to 6.4 thousand. In addition, the number of practicing nurses has experienced a sharper decline, going from over twelve thousand in 2008 to less than 8.4 thousand in 2018. 

Spending indicators on health

Latvia’s expenditure on healthcare was 6.3 percent of GDP in 2019, this share has fluctuated between 5.4 and 6.3 percent since the year 2000. In comparison to other European countries, Latvia ranked rather very low on the share of GDP spent on health, only having a higher share than Luxembourg, Russia and Turkey. Switzerland had the highest share of expenditure on health, spending 12.1 percent of its GDP in this year.