RAJESH MISHRA

DOHA

THE ratio of beds in government as well as private hospitals per 1,000 people in Qatar fell remarkably in 2010 compared to 2006 despite Hamad Medical Corporation’s best efforts to narrow the gap.

According to the Qatar Statistics Authority’s latest report published on Monday, though the total number of beds went up from 1968 in 2006 to 2052 in 2012, the ratio fell from 1.89 in 2006 to 1.19 per 1,000 persons in 2010, thanks to the sharp growth in expatriates’ population in the country.

The number of beds increased from 1968 in 2006 to 2034 in 2007, remained the same in 2008, dipped to 2017 in 2009 and again shot up to 2052 in 2010, but the ratio of beds against a population of 1,000 kept declining through the period, touching the lowest in 2010. The ratio of beds per 1,000 persons was 1.89 in 2006, 1.67 in 2007, 1.4 in 2008, 1.23 in 2009 and 1.19 in 2010, the report says.

Notably, the report points out, government hospitals had a sharper decline in the ratio of beds than private hospitals, falling from 1.52 per 1,000 people in 2006 to 0.95 in 2010. The ratio of beds in private hospitals dropped from 0.37 per 1,000 in 2006 to 0.24 in 2010.

However, the report has a number of positive features such as the number of nurses and physicians increasing in the country. For example, the total number of nurses increased from 6,260 in 2006 to 10,615 in 2010 and their ratio per 1,000 people has gone up from six to 6.07, the report states.

It is, however, worth mentioning that though the number of nurses in government hospitals has gone up from 5,495 in 2006 to 8,435 in 2010, their ratio per 1,000 people has dipped from 5.27 to 4.83. In fact, private hospital nurses whose population more than doubled during the period, compensated for the fall in ratio of nurses’ number per 1,000 persons in government hospital. In private hospitals, the number of nurses went up from 765 in 2006 to 2,180 in 2010 with their ratio rising from 0.73 to 1.25 per 1,000 persons.

Meanwhile, the number of physicians more than doubled between 2006 and 2010, going up from 3,240 to 6,919 with their ratio per 1,000 persons going up from 1.17 to 1.76, says the QSA report.