Health in Latvia

The Latvian healthcare system is a universal programme, largely funded through government taxation. It was among the lowest-ranked healthcare systems in Europe, due to excessive waiting times for treatment, insufficient access to the latest medicines, and other factors. There were 59 hospitals in Latvia in 2009, down from 94 in 2007, and 121 in 2006.

Since 2012 performance has improved considerably, with a reduction in infant mortality from 6.2 per thousand births to 3.9 in two years.

See List of hospitals in Latvia.

Corruption is relatively widespread in the Latvian healthcare system, although the situation has improved since the early 1990s. It has been noted that an environment conducive to corruption has been promulgated by low salaries and poorly implemented systemic reforms. This also results in brain drain, mostly to Western EU nations. According to the survey conducted by the Euro health consumer index in 2015 Latvia was among the European countries in which unofficial payments to doctors were reported most commonly.

As of 2009, there were approximately 8,600 inhabitants of Latvia living with HIV/AIDS, accounting for a 0.7% adult HIV prevalence rate. There were 32,376 (1.44%) individual instances of clinically reported alcoholism in Latvia in 2008, as well as cases of addictions to other substances. The annual number of births per 1,000 adolescent women aged 15 to 19 has declined from 49.9 in 1990 to 17.9 in 2007. In 2005, Latvia had a suicide rate of 24.5 per 100,000 inhabitants (down from 40.7 in 1995), the 7th highest in the world. Latvia achieved a remarkable improvement in infant mortality from 6.2/1000 births in 2012 to 3.9/1000 in 2014.