There were a total of 24,740 health care workers in Estonia in November 2019, and their number has grown by an average of 2 percent per year since 2013. The number of family nurses has grown steadily over the past five years, according to the newly published data of the National Institute for Health Development.
In 2019, there were 3.5 physicians and 6.2 nurses per thousand inhabitants in Estonia, i.e. an average of 1.8 nurses per one physician. "In comparison with European countries, we are close to average in terms of number of physicians and among the countries where there are significantly fewer nurses than average in terms of nurses," explained Katrin Tomson, an analyst at the Department of Health Statistics.
4603 physicians worked last year in Estonia and it has grown by an average of 0.6% per year over the last five years. The average age of physicians, 51 years, has not changed.
The data of health care workers can be found in the Health Statistics and Health Research Database in the section “Health care resources and their use”, by selecting the link “Health care personnel”. The data of the hospitals of the Hospital Network Development Plan can be found under the link “Hospital Network Development Plan hospitals” and the data of health care institutions can be found under the link “Health care providers”.