Australians spent 24.3 million days in hospital last year
Hospital admissions are up again according to a report released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).
The report, Australian hospital statistics 2005-06, shows there were 7.3 million public and private hospital admissions in 2005-06, compared to approximately 7 million in 2004-05. This included a 4.5% rise in public acute hospital admissions and a 3.3% rise in private hospital admissions.
However, the increasing numbers of same-day admissions means that the average length of stay for all admissions has fallen by 21% between 1996-97 and 2005-06, from 4.2 days to 3.3 days, because the average length of other hospital stays has remained fairly constant.
During 2005-06, Australia had 1,291 public and private hospitals, with almost 82,000 available hospital beds. Compared with 2004-05, bed numbers decreased for public hospitals by 0.9%, to about 54,600, and increased for private hospitals by 3.0%, to about 27,200.
Total recurrent expenditure on public acute and public psychiatric hospitals was $24 billion in 2005-06, 5.6% higher than expenditure in 2004-05 after adjusting for inflation.
