2024-03-17 08:44:29
■Major’s resignation in one month… Now is the golden time for medical reform
A mid-sized hospital that fills the gap between tertiary hospitals
Citizen awareness of visiting a local clinic in case of mild illness
‘Three beats’, including medical staff who stay by the patient’s side
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It has been a month since residents resigned en masse in protest once morest the government’s policy of expanding the number of medical school students, but the medical crisis that was feared has not occurred. The result was a combination of three factors: medical staff who stayed by the patient’s side until the end to fill the medical gap, mid-sized hospitals that treated patients who might not receive treatment at higher-level hospitals, and mature citizens who accepted inconveniences and refrained from visiting higher-level hospitals in accordance with government policy. all. Experts pointed out that this situation should be used as an opportunity to reform the distorted medical system.
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the medical community on the 17th, the overall medical use of the top hospitals, so-called Seoul’s ‘Big 5 (Seoul National University, Seoul Asan, Severance, Samsung Seoul, Seoul St. Mary’s) hospitals’, has remained unchanged for the past three weeks. As residents, who accounted for 37.8% of the medical staff at tertiary hospitals, left, there was some confusion initially, such as the number of surgeries plummeting by 50% and outpatient treatment being postponed indefinitely. However, currently, only moderately ill hospitalized patients have decreased by 40% and intensive care units have decreased by 40%. The number of hospitalized patients remains at around 3,000, similar to normal times. Among emergency medical institutions that can treat emergency patients 24 hours a day, 399, or 98% of the total (408), are operating with a focus on seriously ill patients without reducing hospital beds.
As patients with mild symptoms turn to medium-sized hospitals to receive outpatient treatment, a decentralization effect is occurring, with tertiary hospitals focusing on patients with severe and moderate symptoms, and general hospitals, hospitals, and clinics focusing on treating patients with mild symptoms. The number of patients admitted to general hospitals staffed mainly by specialists without residents increased by 11% as of the 14th of this month compared to the first week of February before the departure of the resident group.
Experts emphasized the need to speed up medical reform, such as converting tertiary hospitals into specialist-centered hospitals to focus on serious and emergency patients and strengthening support for specialist and public hospitals. A senior medical figure who served as the director of a university hospital said, “The government’s reform of the medical system is desirable from the perspective of patients’ lives and safety,” and “It may be inconvenient for patients who have made reservations for treatment at a high-level hospital, but it should be used as an opportunity to change the medical system and treatment patterns.” “We do it,” he emphasized.
< 저작권자 ⓒ 서울경제, 무단 전재 및 재배포 금지 >
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