Last year, there was a high level of preventable mortality in the healthcare sector, said Boris Knigin, Deputy State Secretary of the Ministry of Health, at a meeting of the Budget and Finance Commission of the Saeima.
The country maintains a high level of deaths that could have been prevented – Latvia ranks second in the European Union in this regard.
Both greedy authorities and the deceased themselves are to blame for the premature loss of life.
Thus, healthcare spending per capita in Latvia in 2024 amounted to €944.67 compared to €1,211.33 in Lithuania and €1,684.50 in Estonia.
The population also often takes a careless attitude towards their well-being. Public health indicators show high alcohol consumption - 11.7 liters of pure alcohol per Latvian, the smoking rate is 29.3% and continues to grow, 19.5% of schoolchildren are overweight, and only 18.1% of teenagers engage in sports daily.
The Ministry of Health has identified a number of problems in this area – a shortage of workers in family doctor practices, delays in the implementation of ICT projects, such as the electronic health system and the procurement of defibrillators.
However, it has been worse. For example, in the field of oncology, premature mortality from malignant tumors has decreased by 11% compared to 2018. Child health indicators have also improved - since 2019, infant mortality has decreased by 23.5%.
In psychiatry, the suicide rate has decreased by 5.3%, and mortality from cardiovascular diseases within 30 days after hospitalization has decreased by 9.6% among heart attack patients and by 13.6% among stroke patients.
