SEOUL: South Korea is suffering from a shortage of paediatricians, partly a result of the world's lowest birth rate and increasingly a factor behind it, leaving hospitals unable to fill posts and raising risks for children's health, doctors say. The number of paediatric clinics and hospitals in the capital
SEOUL: South Korea is suffering from a shortage of paediatricians, partly a result of the world's lowest birth rate 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's the average number of babies expected per woman - combined with the failure of the insurance system to adapt to it, leaving paediatrics starved of resources and doctors shunning a field they think has no future, seven paediatricians told Reuters.
"We had to wait two weeks," said Lee Bo-mi, a 35-year-old mother with a sick 3-year-old boy, at the Healthy Children's Hospital.Dr Song Dae-jin at Korea University Guro Hospital said he worried that staff shortages could soon cripple his team's ability to provide emergency care. "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 hasn't been revised to reflect fewer child patients. When more babies were growing up, paediatricians could sustain a low price, high volume model but that doesn't apply now.
"We understand that there are opinions from doctors saying it is not enough to cope with difficulties in the field. The government plans to steadily implement and continue to supplement the announced measures,” it said.
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