Does the private sector drain personnel from public hospitals?
In a, at times, heated debate it has been claimed that private hospitals have drained the public hospitals for highly specialised personnel during the past few years. It appears though, according to an unpublished study by the Danish Institute of Health [3], that the total increase in full time doctors at private hospitals has increased by only 13 during the period 2000- 2006 while the number of doctors at public hospitals have increased from 1600 to 2000 during the same period, and at present there are about 1400 vacant positions for specialists. Still, private hospitals have an unknown number of part-time doctors, and they deliver an increasing share of the total health care production. According to the study, private hospitals delivered 4% of the total production in 2008, and in selected areas they had en even higher market share in particular in surgery (obesity surgery: 85%; back surgery: 40%, breast surgery: 19%; and orthopaedic surgery 18%). Reintroduction of the expanded waitin
