While Slovakia is reported to have 3.3 doctors per 1,000 people, which is more or less the same as the OECD average (3.2 doctors), the number of nurses in Slovakia falls well below the OECD average.
According to the latest OECD statistics, there were only 5.9 nurses per 1,000 people in 2011 in Slovakia, compared to the OECD average of 8.8. The head of the Slovak National Centre of Medical Information (NCZI) Peter Bubla says that the highest proportion of nurses is found in Switzerland (16.6 nurses/1,000 people), followed by Denmark and Belgium (both 15.4 nurses per 1,000). The OECD statistics also revealed than half of all doctors in Slovakia are women (56 percent). “The same or even greater proportions of female physicians were recorded only in three monitored countries: Poland (56 percent), Slovenia (59 percent), and in Estonia, with as many as 74 percent of female doctors”, said Bubla, adding that the lowest numbers of female physicians are found in Japan (19 percent) and in Luxembourg (30 percent).
