‘Monster Under the Bed’ is a new season of podcasts by the European Investment Bank that tackles myths and prejudices we all have about anything from health care to cybercrime, and from urban planning to education.

In this episode we talk about how advances in medicine and squeezed budgets are forcing countries to rethink health care.

For most of us, hospitals conjure up some very specific images: nurses and doctors running around, fancy machinery beeping away, somebody yelling “STAT!” While hospitals are chaotic places, they are also strangely reassuring. No matter how you are injured or what strange illness you’ve contracted, going to the nearby hospital can make you better. But maybe you don’t need a hospital after all. Did you know:

-      Hospitals are an extremely expensive way to treat people

-      Technology has made many surgeries less invasive, so that we don’t need to spend as much time in a hospital bed

-      Patients in hospitals are often overtreated or required to stay longer than necessary

-      Germany has a higher number of hospital beds than Spain, but the Spanish system is one of the world’s best

-      People with chronic health issues are best treated outside of a hospital setting

-      20% of all health spending is wasted on ineffective care

Our guests are Tunde Szabo and Dana Burduja from the European Investment Bank’s Life Sciences division. They talk about how many countries actually need to close hospitals, or at least slim them down, to free up resources for other, more effective forms of care.

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