Will more public hospitals narrow the medical divide?
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Loading... - Alex Pinyin
- 19 Jan 2023
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Citizens Coalition for Economic Justice (CCEJ) has called for increasing the numbers of public medical schools and public hospitals, pointing out that the gap in medical resources among regions leads to the gap in amenable mortality rate.
The Korea Medical Association refuted it on Tuesday, saying the increase in public medical schools and public hospitals cannot be seen as an answer.
“Public hospitals that have become nursing hospitals are not playing their public role,” wrote Woo Bong-shik, head of the Medical Policy Research Institute at KMA, on his Facebook page.
Citing the Public Health and Medicine Act, Woo said, “According to the law, public medical institutions are obliged to prioritize jobs hard to be tackled by private hospitals due to low profitability and require a swift response, such as providing healthcare service to low-supply sectors and responding to disasters and infectious diseases.”
However, he pointed out that most public hospitals are playing their primary role but provide profit-oriented treatment. “That explains why the public hospitals, with more than 60,000 beds, are facing criticism that they do not even accommodate Covid-19 patients who need to be hospitalized,” he said.
He pointed out that the number of public hospital beds in Korea is not small compared to other OECD countries, stressing the problem lies with their failure to play the role of public hospitals true to their name. Read More…
