[box type=”info” align=”” class=”” width=””]by Niall McCarthy, [/box]
Analysing the number of hospital beds per capita provides a good indication of the level of resources available to a country in terms of treating inpatients in hospitals. When it comes to the world’s developed economies, Japan and South Korea lead the way in hospital bed capacity with 13.0 and 12.4 per 1,000 of the population, respectively. That is considerably more than the United States with 2.9 or the UK with 2.5 per 1,000 inhabitants.
Some difference in the way hospitals are structured influence this ranking, however. Japan, for example, habitually places geriatric care beds in hospitals, upping the count of hospital beds. Furthermore, the countries with the most hospital beds don’t necessarily have the most intensive care beds, a factor important during the COVID-19 pandemic.
