Density of medical doctors (per 10,000 population), 2014-2022: 26.4
Density of nursing and midwifery personnel (per 10,000 population), 2014-2022: 60.2
Density of dentists (per 10,000 population), 2014-2022: 10.7
Density of pharmacists (per 10,000 population), 2014-2022: 11.9
Source: World health statistics 2024: monitoring health for the SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals: Statistical Annex. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2024. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. Last accessed May 31, 2024.
Hospital beds per 1,000 population, 2021: 1.2
Average length of stay in hospital, 2021: 6.8 days
Average number of in-person doctor consultations per person, 2021: 2.1
CT scanners per million population, 2021: 3.29
CT exams per 1,000 population, 2021: 51.1
MRI units per million population, 2021: 0.39
MRI exams per 1,000 population, 2021: 2.2
Source: OECD (2023), Health at a Glance 2023: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, doi.org/10.1787/7a7afb35-en.
Hospital Beds Per 1,000 Population, 2021: 1.17
Doctors Consultations In All Settings, Number Per Capita, 2020: 1.9
Hospital Average Length of Stay, All Causes, 2020: 5.2 Days
Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. OECD.Stat. Last accessed Oct. 23, 2022.
“Hospital length of stay was 6.58 days on average in 2015, basically unchanged since 2002. This figure is slightly less than the OECD average of 7.5 days, but longest of all Latin America countries studied in a recent IDB report, driven mainly by hospitalisations related to infectious diseases (gastrointestinal and respiratory) and complications related to diabetes mellitus (Guanais et al., 2012).”
Source: OECD (2017), OECD Reviews of Health Systems: Costa Rica 2017, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264281653-en.
“As for human resources, hospital beds in Costa Rica also fall short. The amount of hospital beds in Costa Rica was 1.2 per 1 000 inhabitants in 2012, four times below the average of 4.8 among OECD countries in 2012 (World Bank, 2016i; and OECD, 2016). The lack of human resources for health in Costa Rica is of specific concern since it undermines the capacity of the health care system to deliver best possible quality services. Instead, a low health workforce leads to overcrowded health facilities with long waiting times.”
Source: OECD (2017), OECD Reviews of Health Systems: Costa Rica 2017, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264281653-en.
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Page last updated March 29, 2025 by Doug McVay, Editor.