Dying in Hospital Related to Province

The chance that you will die in a hospital seems to highly depend on the province where you live! The number of patients who die in a hospital is lowest in Zeeland, Groningen and Friesland and highest in the province of Limburg.

A report by the  VU medical center in Amsterdam and the Institution Nivel for healthcare says that cultural and religious differences per area determine largely whether people will go to a hospital to die or they will avoid dying in one. According to the researchers, these numbers do not say anything about the quality of hospital care. To what extent factors like religion and family culture play a role in these mortality numbers is yet to be investigated.

In Limburg, majority of the people are Catholic, while in Zeeland, Groningen and Friesland, majority are Protestant.

In 2011 standardized mortality numbers from the Dutch hospitals were made public for the first time. Providing detailed information about mortality in hospitals has been started this year only in six hospitals because not all hospitals want to give this kind of detailed information to the public.