Svendborg hospital reports higher survival after hip fractures

Patients with hip fractures are more likely to be alive after a year at Svendborg Hospital than the national average, according to a 2025 report cited by DR. The hospital’s specialist centre treated about 700 patients last year, around 10 per cent of all such cases in Denmark.

One-year mortality among hip-fracture patients in Denmark is 26.4 per cent, compared with 21.4 per cent in Svendborg, the report from the Danish Interdisciplinary Register for Hip Fractures found. Around 10 per cent of patients nationally die within 30 days.

The centre opened at Svendborg Hospital, part of Odense University Hospital, in 2024. It brings together staff from orthopaedics, anaesthesiology, geriatrics and the emergency department to coordinate care from the time patients are admitted.

About 7,500 people in Denmark break a hip each year. The average patient is 83, and two-thirds are women. Many have other illnesses, making the group particularly vulnerable, said Adam von Cappeln, a senior anaesthesiologist at the hospital.

One of those patients is 85-year-old Gerda Stokholm Michaelsen, who fell in her kitchen during Whitsun and broke her hip. She had surgery the next day and began training soon afterwards. About a month later, she was able to stop using crutches, DR reports.

Michaelsen is now recovering from the effects of a blood clot that developed after the fracture. She uses a walker for some daily tasks but said she is exercising and hopes to regain her strength.