ABF Information Series Number 2. The special case of smaller and regional hospitals

There are 762 public hospitals in Australia. Of these, 209 (27%) have 10 or less beds (see Table 1). A further 337 (44%) have between 10 and 50 beds. However, due to their small size, these 71% of hospitals represents only 17% of all public hospital beds (AIHW, 2009). Contrary to popular perception, only 10% of public hospitals in Australia have more than 200 beds.