▲ Lee Cook-jong, a trauma surgeon at Ajou University Hospital
A trauma center is a hospital equipped and staffed to provide care for patients suffering from major traumatic injuries such as falls, motor vehicle collisions, or gunshot wounds. Although South Korea has designated a regional trauma center, each year, more than 100,000 people suffer from major traumas and preventable mortality rates account for 35.2%.
Currently, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (WOHW) sets the standard for medical practice or pharmaceutical treatments, and if the hospital does not comply with the criteria for the medical care, and reduces the billed cost of medical care. The trauma surgeon, Lee Cook-jong said “The essential treatment for patients who hover between life and death is unavoidable. And several months later, it is said that the cost of billed cost was cut off.” The problem of perfunctory procedure is frankly revealed that it does not taken into account the reality in a major trauma center. In fact, Prof. Lee has worked hard to save patients and has faced a deficit of 100 million KRW a year.
Furthermore, the biggest difficulty in the trauma center is a manpower shortage. Many doctors do not want to back the trauma center up; the rate of applications in this area is 0.83 to 1. In overseas cases, one nurse takes care of one severe patient. However, South Korea’s nurse-to-patient ratio is above 1:2. The nurses’ resignation rate is over 30%, and the investment of manpower system is not far enough.
Until recently, the trauma center system was solely focused on increasing numbers using existing university hospital faculties. There is no close connection between the transport system and the regional trauma center. Professor Kim Yoon (Department of Health Policy & Management) of Seoul National University and his research team revealed that a preventable mortality rate of 35.2% could decrease to 24.1% at the regional trauma center. However, the emergency transportation system is not well equipped, so a lot of patients and surgeons lose the golden hour before patients arrive at the hospital.
Prof. Lee has consistently raised the problem of aid deficiency in the area of major trauma. Petitions requesting additional support for the trauma center was posted on the Cheong Wa Dae web site and 200,000 people have signed a signature campaign. As a result, WOHW announced that it plans to improve overall support systems such as expanding facilities, manpower support for trauma centers and an increase in budget allocations. Concretely, after analyzing the types of medical care provided by the trauma center, medical care procedures or medications that can be covered by insurance are guaranteed through health insurance. Next year, the trauma center’s budget will expand to 61.2 billion KRW. In addition to financial support, it will need realization of the medical fees and raise cooperation with other medical institutions to transform itself into a trauma center equipped with a comprehensive cooperation system
What should be noted here is that most of the accidental deaths were from lower income vulnerable social groups. If social leaders were killed by accidental death and a lack of support, it, most likely would have been politicized. There is a need to doubt about the social security networks that have not been discussed and be concerned about the equalization of medical care.