Macao now has fewer doctors than 12 months ago but more nurses after a year that has been defined by Covid-19.
The Statistics and Census Bureau reported that the number of doctors dropped by 1.1 per cent year-on-year to 1,789 at the end of last year, while that of nurses rose by 3.1 per cent to 2,568, meaning that there are now 2.6 doctors and 3.8 nurses for every 1,000 residents. At the end of last year, Macao’s population stood at 683,100.
The number of in-patient beds in Macao’s four hospitals rose by 87 to 1,715 year-on-year at the end of 2020.
The number of in-patients dropped by 13 per cent year-on-year to 54,000 last year, while the average hospital stay rose by 0.2 days to 7.6 days.
With the increase in the number of in-patient beds and a drop in total hospital stays of in-patients, the occupancy rate of in-patient beds fell by 12.1 percentage points year-on-year to 66.2 per cent.
Hospital out-patient attendances decreased by 150,000 (less 7.9 per cent) year-on-year to 1.742 million, mainly due to a fall of 82,000 consultations (26.4 per cent less) in Internal Medicine and a decline of 65,000 (46.7 per cent less) in Paediatrics/ Neonatology. Analysed by medical departments, Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation accounted for the majority (232,000) of the out-patient attendances, at 13.3 per cent, followed by Internal Medicine (229,000) and Traditional Chinese Medicine (191,000), which took up 13.2 per cent and 10.9 per cent respectively.
Emergency attendances declined by 30 per cent year-on-year to 342,000, with those in the peninsula (278,000) and Taipa (64,000) falling by 27.3 per cent and 39.8 per cent respectively.
About 18,000 surgical operations were performed in 2020, down by 6.8 per cent year-on-year; surgical operations in Ophthalmology (2,788 cases) dropped by 30.2 per cent.
Some 702 primary health care establishments (including public health centres and private clinics) were in operation at the end of last year. The total number of consultations decreased by 21 per cent year-on-year to 3.24 million, of which consultations in public entities (819,000) and private clinics (2.43 million) fell by 12.8 per cent and 23.4 per cent respectively. Consultations in Traditional Chinese Medicine (1.04 million) constituted 32.1 per cent of the total, followed by those in General Practice (753,000) and Stomatology/Odontology (284,000), at 23.2 per cent and 8.7 per cent respectively.
A total of 395,000 doses of vaccines were administered in hospitals and primary healthcare establishments in 2020, down by 5 per cent year-on-year; flu vaccinations rose by 12.2 per cent to 181,000 doses.
In 2020, a total of 1.9 million nucleic acid tests (NATs) for the novel coronavirus were conducted in hospitals and primary healthcare establishments.
The number of blood donations rose by 7.1 per cent year-on-year to 16,541 in 2020, with 3,110 first-time blood donations. A total of 11,537 persons donated blood, up by 3.5 per cent year-on-year.
