some countries such as denmark the netherlands and norway rely on such personnel to a great extent while in hungary their role appears to be limited as reflected in their comparatively low numbers at per thousand population in consistent with the general trend of declining numbers of hospital beds the number of hospital beds per thousand population in hungary came down to around seven in from nearly nine in owing to costcontainment policies targeting excess capacity in the hospital sector and the advent of new medical technologies allowing greater reliance on day care rather than long hospitalisation nevertheless the number of hospital beds remained above the oecd average of five per thousand in oecd figure the average lengths of stay in acute and inpatient care were among the lowest in the oecd in