As a result of the corona pandemic, life expectancy in the EU area has fallen by more than a year in 2021 compared to pre-crisis levels. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) announced in Paris on Monday that this is the largest drop for most countries since World War II.
Life expectancy in 2021 was therefore just over 80 years. The pandemic has put a strain on health systems everywhere. The supply in Austria was therefore less limited than in other parts of Europe. Before the pandemic, this country had a relatively large workforce and above-average hospital capacity, according to the OECD, which benefited care during the crisis.
The number of knee and hip operations decreased
As a result, the number of hip operations in Austria fell by 10 percent in the first year of the pandemic, while it fell by an average of 14 percent in EU countries. However, the number of knee surgeries fell by 21 percent, similar to the EU average of 24 percent, the report shows.
For Austria, the data also shows that 41 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds experienced symptoms of depression during the pandemic – far more than in the adult group as a whole (24 percent). The share of overweight or obese children between the ages of seven and ten has also risen sharply in Austria from 20.7 percent in September 2019 to 26.2 percent in March 2021.
Healthcare expenditure has risen sharply
Corona drove up health expenditure in 2020 and 2021 in almost all EU countries. In Germany, health expenditure per capita in 2020 increased by 1.7 percent in real terms compared to the previous year and by 10.1 percent in the previous year. Measured by gross domestic product, the share of health care expenditure rose from 10.5 percent in 2019 to 11.5 percent in 2020 and 12.2 percent in the previous year.
The coronavirus pandemic has shed a clear light on the weaknesses of Europe’s health systems, which have been underfunded in many places for years. However, this applies less to Austria than to many other countries, the OECD emphasizes in a press release.
Source: Krone
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