Last year, there were 23,750 health care professionals in practice in Estonia, an increase of 1.6% compared to 2016.
Last year, the number of physicians was 4,569 and it increased by 0.5%. The average age of physicians was 51 years and it has not changed over the last year. The average age of our family doctors continues to grow and was 55 years in 2017. One-fifth of them are 65 years of age or older. At the same time, the number of family nurses has increased by 4%. The number of family nurses was 1,242 and their average age was 47 years.
In 2017, 3.5 physicians and 6.5 nursing staff, including 6.2 nurses per 1,000 inhabitants were in Estonia. In 2015, the average number of physicians per 1,000 inhabitants in the European Union countries was similar, but the number of nursing staff was almost one and a half times bigger - 8.6.
54% of physicians worked full-time, one-quarter worked less and one-fifth with a bigger workload. Most of the nurses (67%) worked full-time, but a one-tenth with a bigger workload.
Health care personnel data is available in the Health Statistics and Health Research Database. Statistics on health care personnel working in the Hospital Masterplan hospitals can be found here and the division of health care providers by the number of employees is published under “Health care providers” (table TTO15).