With COVID-19 still limiting our lives, the expansion of public hospitals has become an important topic again.
In particular, on April 26, the government announced its second plan to expand public health care by 2025, but it was actually a very disappointing plan. There are rumors that public hospitals will be expanded from a big point of view, but the government's intention to expand public hospitals was not felt at all because it did not include the existing three medical centers in western Busan, western Gyeongsangnam-do, and Daejeon over the next five years.
Gwangju Metropolitan City, Ulsan Metropolitan City and Daegu Metropolitan City are talking about where active discussions are underway, and Incheon Metropolitan City is also demanding the establishment of a new public hospital. In South Gyeongsang Province alone, it was decided to reopen local medical centers that had disappeared in the past in Jinju, but Hadong and Namhae counties, which wanted to attract local medical centers, also had to set up public hospitals. Is South Gyeongsang Province the only place like this?
In this article, I would like to criticize three aspects of the government's basic plan to expand public health care announced on April 26.
First of all, we are turning a blind eye to the high demand for the expansion of rural public hospitals. Second, we need to expand public hospitals to deal with new infectious diseases such as COVID-19.
The need for public hospitals to respond to government policies in case of emergency is emphasized due to the prediction that new infectious diseases such as COVID-19 will come soon.
In foreign countries, the government is responsible for providing fair medical services to underprivileged areas through periodic circulation and consultation, especially in cooperation with public hospitals in neighboring metropolitan areas.
Currently, there are not enough public hospitals to deal with problems in local areas, but there is also a lack of public health care delivery system that enables such cooperative treatment among public hospitals. The shortage of public hospitals in Korea accounts for about 10 percent of beds, and it is well known that they are the lowest among OECD countries, but some people may wonder what the public health and medical delivery system is.
However, it is easy to understand that this is a system that overcomes the lack of hospitals or the small size of hospitals that make it difficult to get medical treatment for specialized subjects. This can be done by doctors and administrative support systems that are based on large public hospitals in large cities and have close cooperation with rural medical staff and actively support rural hospitals to maintain excellent medical service levels. This system is completely impossible with a market-oriented medical system that allows people to come to the metropolitan area and receive medical treatment if they get sick like now. That doesn't mean it's possible to send a public health doctor to the countryside instead of an army. In fact, many people say that doctors don't go to the countryside because they don't get paid much, but the real big reason is because of medical accidents.
In rural areas, emergency patients and intensive care skills are inevitable. It is not important to have a doctor or a medical institution in the countryside, but a system to help emergency patients and intensive care patients who meet by chance not to be given ridiculous diagnosis and prescription is essential. Education and training are required, consultation and consultation are required, and doctors in special fields in large cities should visit the countryside to discuss patient cases together, and promise to cooperate with each other on how to deal with similar cases. Without such a support system, any doctor would have thought it would have been reckless to go to the countryside alone.
Writer: Yeyoung Jeon
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