A Eurostat study shows that Luxembourg is ranked 21st out of 25 European countries when it comes to the speedy release of patients, with an average stay of 8.9 days. But there are countries where stays are longer yet.
The Czechs stay on average 9.6 days and the Croatians 9.3. Then follows France (9.1), Germany (9.0) and Luxembourg with just a little less than 9 days.
On the other side of the ranking, among the countries with the shortest hospital stays, the Netherlands ranks first with 4.5 days followed by Bulgaria (5.3) and Denmark (5.5) days.
"The goal is really to leave the patient as long as needed in hospital," says Professor Jean-Louis Vanoverschelde, medical director of Saint Luc University Clinics in Brussels. "Today, the best surgical or intervention techniques mean that there are fewer complications, better tolerated by patients, so they can leave faster," he says.
According to some experts, some interventions may not require overnight stays in the hospital.
"There is for example the removal of the gall bladder that can be performed in the day hospital and there we see that the day hospital makes more sense and is more useful than conventional hospitalisation."
But then what should be done to reduce hospital stays, and thus reduce costs?
The stays are determined on a case by case basis. But the message from the hospital management is clear: do not keep a patient in the room for longer than the time required.
For this study, only public hospitals were taken into account. Psychiatric institutions, long-stay hospitals and geriatric care were not counted. Data for Hungary, Greece and Portugal were not available for the year 2016.
