South Korea's birth rate fell to 0.78 in 2022, the world's lowest. Read more at straitstimes.com.
and increasingly a factor behind it, leaving hospitals unable to fill posts and raising risks for children’s health, doctors say.
At the root of the problem is a birth rate that fell to 0.78 in 2022 – that is the average number of babies expected per woman – combined with the failure of the insurance system to adapt to it. According to ministry data, hospitals were able to secure the services of only 16.3 per cent of the paediatricians they sought in the first half of 2023, down from 97.4 per cent in 2013.One recent morning, the waiting room at a hospital in Seoul’s outskirts was packed with dozens of children, many on intravenous drips.
“Patients dying while bouncing around multiple emergency rooms, dying when it’s not a serious disease, it’s a travesty,” said Dr Choi Yong-jae, vice-president of the Korea Children’s Hospital Association.Doctors say the low-fee problem is particular to paediatrics as the insurance system has not been revised to reflect fewer child patients. When more babies were growing up, paediatricians could sustain a low-price, high-volume model, but that does not apply now.
By comparison, it costs about A$335 for initial standard consultation with an Australian paediatrician, while observation at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in the US costs US$208 per hour, according to its website. Data from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service shows paediatricians are South Korea’s lowest-paid doctors, making 57 per cent less than the average doctor’s salary.Sowha Hospital, South Korea’s oldest children’s hospital, recently suspended Saturday afternoon and Sunday treatment for the first time in 77 years owing to a lack of staff.
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