PRESENT SITUATION

1. Total number of physicians

There are 169.319 doctors at july 1st 2004, which represents a ratio of  396.37 doctors per one hundred thousand population. This number isn’t directly comparable with those for European Union from statiscal sources of european ambit (EUROSTAT –the Statistical Office of the European Communities- and the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Europe). Table 1 shows the more significative data to compare the situation in Spain whit that of the European Union (at least with that reflected by countries whose data are in the EUROSTAT web for the year 2002). 

Table 1. Physicians per 100.000 population  in Spain and the EU. Source: EUROSTAT web page.  
(EU 15: EU countries before 2004. EU+10: recent EU members)

Figures 1 and 2 show comparative data of the EU individual countries:

Figure 1.  Graduated physicians in EU countries, year 2002 (except for Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden, year 2001), ratio per 100.000 population. Source: EUROSTAT.

Figure 2. Active physicians in EU countries, year 2002 (except for Greece, year 2001), ratio per 100.000 population. Source: EUROSTAT.

Spanish data (green bars in figures) are near the EU-15 average (EU countries before 2004; garnet bars in figures) and over that corresponding to recent members of the EU (EU+10, blue bars in figures).  However, lack of data from several countries, and the great population of some of them (such as Italy, which elevates the graduated European average and put Spain near average, although being the second in the ranking), makes caution neccesary for data valuation. By the other side, we cannot forget how countries with inferior ratio to the Spanish one (as, i.e., United Kingdom, Portugal and France) are suffering from significant physicians’ shortages that carry them to look for professionals in other countries (Spain included). 

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