Eurostat: Half of Bulgarians did not Visit their General Practitioner in 2017

Society » HEALTH | February 26, 2019, Tuesday // 11:47
Bulgaria: Eurostat: Half of Bulgarians did not Visit their General Practitioner in 2017

More than 52% of Bulgarians did not visit their GP for the 12 months of 2017, according to a Eurostat study on the frequency of family doctor visits to citizens of the European Union (EU). The EU average is 24%, ie, one in 5 Europeans has never visited his GP for the specified period.

About 20% of Bulgarians have visited their GPs once or twice a year, while only 5% of our compatriots have visited their GP more than 10 times a year.

Even more alarming is the situation with our compatriots visiting the dentist: over 80% of Bulgarians have not been at a dentist at all in the 12 months of 2017, while 18% have done this 1-2 times and only 2% more than 5 times in one year. According to NSI data in Bulgaria in 2017 there were more than 4,500 general practitioners and more than 8000 dentists.

According to the number of general practitioners of 100 000 people, our country occupies one of the last places in the EU - 64 persons on 100 000 Bulgarians. The situation with the dentists is much better - there are 112 dentists per 100 000 Bulgarians, with which Bulgaria is one of the three EU countries with more than 100 dentists per 100 000 population. The other two are Greece - 123 dentists per 100,000 and Cyprus - 104 per 100,000.

Denmark is the country where residents most regularly visited their GP and more than 10 times a year - nearly 30% of Danes were on a visit to their family doctor almost every month in 2017. Other countries with a regular visit to a personal the doctor is Austria - 13%, Luxembourg, Croatia and Hungary - 10%, etc.

On the other end is the situation in Greece where over 60% of our southern neighbors have never visited their family doctor during the 12 months of 2017. Bulgaria's second position is 52% while other countries with low registration rates for visits to the GP are Romania - 43%, Poland - 36%, Cyprus - 32% and the three Baltic republics - by about 30%.

The highest share of private doctors per 100,000 population is registered in Portugal - 253, followed by Ireland - 179, Austria - 159, the Netherlands - 157 and Germany - 152 personal doctors per 100,000 inhabitants in these countries. The share of those who did not go to a dentist for the 12 months of 2017 is the highest in Romania - 82%, followed by Bulgaria - 80%.

On average, 45% of people in the EU have not consulted a dentist in the last 12 months before the study and 42% have gone to a dentist once or twice. According to the analysis, there are about 1.8 million general practitioners in the EU and about 360,000 dental practitioners.

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