Among all medical services provided in Macau during 2019, ophthalmological surgeries grew the most, registering a year-on-year increase of 40.4%, the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) revealed.
These medical procedures continue to grow at a rate well above all other services, registering growth of more than 40% for two consecutive years.
Out of 20,000 surgical operations in 2019, almost 4,000 (20%) were related ophthalmology. This significant figure also pushed the total number of surgeries up by 6.3% year-on-year.
In general, demand for services from the five hospital units and sub-units in Macau registered a growth in demand, with outpatient services growing 5.8% to 1,892,000. Consultations in internal medicine (312,000) accounted for 16.5%, followed by physiotherapy and rehabilitation (252,000), which made up 13.3%.
During this period, patient presentations for Emergency services rose by 5.2% year-on-year to 489,000, with those attending in the Peninsula (383,000) and Taipa (107,000) increasing 5.9% and 3.0% respectively.
In 2019, the number of inpatients went up by 3.9% year-on-year to 62,000, with the average hospital stay increasing 0.2 days to 7.4 days.
Chinese medicine
consultations grow 28%
According to the same statistical data from DSEC, traditional Chinese medicine became more popular in 2019, registering 27.8% growth in the number of consultations to a total of 1,143,000. This is just below the number of general practice consultations held in private clinics (1,227,000).
Including consultations hosted by government health establishments, the number of consultations from the 716 primary health care establishments in Macau reached 4,112,000. This represented a year-on-year increase of 4.5%.
The number of vaccinations was also on a rise, increasing by 9.5% year-on-year. A total of 416,000 vaccines were administered in both hospitals and primary healthcare settings in 2019.
The influenza vaccines accounted for 38.7% of all vaccines administered, totaling 161,000 doses.
Almost one-third
of blood donations in
2019 were by first-timers
Of the 11,150 people who donated blood in Macau in 2019, 3,369 did so for the first time, accounting for 30.2% of all blood donors.
The new donors contributed to the increase in donations last year, which rose by 3.9% to 15,441, official statistics from DSEC show.
According to the statistics and data from the Health Bureau, there were a total of 1,808 physicians and 2,491 nurses in Macau in 2019, 3.1% and 1.1% more than in the previous year respectively.
The ratio of physicians and nurses per 1,000 people was 2.7 and 3.7, respectively.
According to the latest figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the list of countries and regions with the highest ratio of physicians per 1,000 people is led by Austria, with a ratio of 5.2.
Macau’s ratio is equivalent to countries such as the United States of America or Canada, and is 0.7 higher than China.
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