Newsletter from Health Right Network(2015. May/Jun)

#1. [Joint statement] National Health Insurance(seq, NHI), Less Benefit More Premium

– The insurance premium of the NHI accounted for about 83% of the finance, which is mostly covered by insurance premium and alloted charge of government, Contribution of the government decreased in 2013. Every year between 2003 and 2013, the premium rate has been increased and the annual rate of increase clocked up 4.1% in average. This number is 2.7 times higher than increase rate of urban household income of 1.5% in average, during the same period. Nonetheless, the cumulative surplus of the NHI amounts to approximately 13 trillion won. The government has been trying to switch tax-financed service to NHI covered service. The government, chip in for financing essential social security by social insurane premium, is nothing less than giving up the duties and responsibilities on people as a result. For this reason, Health Right Network declared the joint statement with other civil groups.

#2. [Dispatch of Joint Open Letter to Ministry of Health and Welfare(seq, MW)] Patients who were forced to transfer or urged to discharge from the National Medical Center(seq, NMC)

– In the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome(seq, MERS) epidemic from last May, MW designated the NMC as ‘MERS center’ for intensive care on MERS patients. Although it is natural for the NMC as a public hospital to perform the role, discharging and transferring the existing inpatients to secure the bed for MERS patients was not proper a speck. First, considering the status of inpatients, which mostly consist of public charges and the low-income, the plan to aid financial burdens is not prepared, so they stand a chance of avoiding subsequent hospitalizations. Secondly, they are also probable to encounter denials of hospitalization and treatment from other hospitals because they are from the NMC in the period of MERS epidemic. The government should keep in mind that it has the duties and responsibilities for securing the right to health via providing proper health care service to people. Hence, Health Right Network and other civil groups dispatched open letter urging to make plan for transferred and discharged patients from the NMC.

 

#3. Demand Revision of Ordinance providing Obligatory Consignment on University hospital

– Seongnam medical center, which will open in 2017, is the first public hospital forwarded to establish through the ordinance making movement of the residents in South Korea. Allowing for the closing of Jin-ju medical center in Gyeonsangnam-do from the beginning of Park administration, people’s effort to build the medical center reminds us of the importance of public health service. People of Seongnam have stressed the volition to protect their own rights to health through filling a void in public health service of the region and settling health inequity by transparent and sound hospital operation during the ordinance making movement. Despite people’s opposition, Saenuri-dang(ruling-party), however, arbitrarily passed the ordinance providing ‘obligatory consignment on university hospital’ abusing the status of majority in the provincial assembly in last 2011. the members of city council are not supposed to forget that the origin of the medical center as a public hospital is situated at people’s participation. Hereat, Health Right Network demands the revision of the ordinance providing ‘obligatory consignment on university hospital’, expecting the expansion of public health care center like the Seongnam medical center supplementing vulnerable regional public health service.