Atlas of Medical Deserts

The country

What grew and what stood still

From 2004 to 2024, doctors per 10,000 residents rose from 21.2 to 34.0: most of the growth came in the last decade, from 24.6 in 2014 to 34.0 in 2024. Not every category grew the same way.

Dentists grew faster than doctors overall: from 4.4 per 10,000 residents in 2004 to 9.7 in 2024, more than double. Pharmacies followed a similar path, from 2.1 to 3.9 per 10,000. Family doctors tell a different story: from 5.1 per 10,000 in 2004, they rose to a peak of 6.5 in 2011, then fell to 5.4 in 2018 and reached only 5.8 by 2024 — less than in 2011, thirteen years earlier. The family practice in every commune, the layer of care designed precisely to cover the territory evenly, is the only one that hasn't just failed to keep pace with the rest of the system, but hasn't even recovered its own peak.

Hospital beds for continuous care have stayed nearly unchanged: 62.8 per 10,000 residents in 2004, a low of 58.6 in 2014, 62.6 in 2024. The hospital system hasn't expanded in twenty years; there has only been a redistribution between units, visible below in the hub localities.

The counties

From 11 to 86

The doctor rate for a county, computed from the sum of its localities' doctors and residents, runs from 11.1 per 10,000 residents in Vaslui to 85.8 in Bucharest: nearly eightfold. The bottom of the list is almost entirely counties without a large university city with an emergency hospital: Vaslui, Dâmbovița, Călărași, Giurgiu, Ialomița. The top corresponds to counties whose seats are cities with clinical hospitals and medical schools: Timiș (Timișoara), Cluj (Cluj-Napoca), Dolj (Craiova), Mureș (Târgu Mureș), Iași and Bucharest.

A county's rate is the sum of its localities' doctors divided by the sum of their residents; the municipality of Bucharest is counted as a single county, as INS does.

Twenty years

The localities that lost their last doctor

315 localities had at least one doctor in some year between 2004 and 2022, but report none in either 2023 or 2024. This isn't a one-year blip: in each of them, INS recorded zero doctors, two years running, the most that an annual series can show about a practice that closed, or a doctor who retired or moved and was never replaced. The most populated of them are communes of several thousand residents, not tiny villages where one person leaving could be statistical noise.

1. ArboreSuceava20198,173 residents
2. PăltinișBotoșani20225,836 residents
3. SângeruPrahova20205,481 residents
4. ZagonCovasna20204,980 residents
5. Satu MareSuceava20204,719 residents
6. CașinBacău20224,128 residents
7. Viile Satu MareSatu Mare20153,993 residents
8. BrodinaSuceava20193,969 residents
9. IvăneștiVaslui20213,916 residents
10. GroșiMaramureș20213,752 residents

The year shown is the last one in which the locality reported at least one doctor. Click a name and the map jumps there.

The sector

From public to private, without disappearing

In 64 localities with at least six doctors in 2004, the share employed by the state fell by at least 40 percentage points by 2024, while the total number of doctors stayed at least at 70% of its level from twenty years earlier — so this isn't simply a shrinking workforce, but a genuine change of employer. In 27 of them, medical staff flipped completely: from 100% public employees to 100% private.

1. SânpetruBrașov100%→0%7→5 doctors
2. Valu lui TraianConstanța100%→0%6→8 doctors
3. Miercurea NirajuluiMureș100%→0%6→7 doctors
4. SărmașuMureș100%→0%10→7 doctors
5. Ariceștii RahtivaniPrahova100%→0%6→6 doctors
6. MăneciuPrahova100%→0%7→7 doctors
7. PeriamTimiș100%→0%6→5 doctors
8. NădlacArad90%→0%10→8 doctors
9. SântanaArad88%→0%17→12 doctors
10. PlenițaDolj88%→0%8→6 doctors

The percentages show the share of doctors employed by the state in 2004 and in 2024; the numbers show the total doctor count in the same years. Click a name and the map jumps there.

The hubs

The localities that serve more than themselves

18 localities with under 4,000 residents have their own rate of at least 25 doctors per 10,000, inflated by a hospital or medical centre that draws patients from the wider area. Add the neighbours’ doctors and population to the numerator and the denominator alike, and the rate more than halves in every single case. INS counts staff at the institution's registered address, not by where patients come from, so a small commune can look like a medical hub only because it hosts a building that serves a much wider catchment.

1. BrădulețArgeș68.9→11.81,597 residents
2. BorșaCluj62.2→8.81,287 residents
3. UnguriuBuzău60.4→11.22,154 residents
4. SăpocaBuzău57.6→9.13,472 residents
5. VedeaArgeș65.7→18.03,197 residents
6. NucetBihor60.1→16.81,995 residents
7. JebelTimiș60.8→19.03,786 residents
8. LehliuCălărași62.1→24.92,416 residents

The first figure is the locality's own doctor rate per 10,000 residents in 2024; the second is the rate computed over the locality's population plus its direct neighbours, with their doctors added to the numerator. Click a name and the map jumps there.

Nothing at all

566 localities with no pharmacy and no hospital

Among the localities that already existed before the 2003–2006 administrative reorganisation, and so had thirty years in which a pharmacy or a hospital could have appeared, 566 have never reported one, from 1995 to 2024. They aren't necessarily tiny villages: several of them have close to 5,000 residents.

1. SmârdanGalați5,975residents
2. RipiceniBotoșani5,322residents
3. RăchițiBotoșani5,278residents
4. Podenii NoiPrahova4,832residents
5. Sita BuzăuluiCovasna4,781residents
6. BălușeniBotoșani4,723residents
7. HăneștiBotoșani4,655residents
8. FărcașeleOlt4,486residents
9. Muntenii de JosVaslui4,427residents
10. ȘonaAlba4,287residents

Most of the other long-standing localities have had a pharmacy or a hospital at some point; communes created after 2003 are excluded from this list so they aren't mistaken for a genuine desert, since a new commune can look "pharmacy-free" simply because the pharmacy stayed registered under the parent commune it split from. Click a name and the map jumps there.